Weekend Trip

Saturday was my grandma's 82nd birthday. I had made plans with Mom and Dad to go and visit her for the the weekend. We started our trek around 9 am. Some lazy snowflakes were drifting in the air. It was cold! No big deal. We got on the interstate and headed through the mountains. The snow started to pick up. Before long we found ourselves in white out condition, barely able to make out the vehicles just ahead of us. A few moments of practically driving blind prevailed but luckily didn't last too long. Onward we drove, cruising westward through the mountains that had been blasted through long ago when the government was building the massive highway we today call Interstate 80. A ribbon of concrete and asphalt running from New York City on the east coast to San Franciso in the West. It's really amazing when you think about it. You could hop on there and ride across the entire country without switching highways even once.

After a couple of hours we reached our destination. Grandma was sitting in her big chair by the window where she has a wonderful view of her rolling lawn and the not so distant hills. I gave her my card and flowers . She added them to her growing collection. It was spring time in February in her little house. Later, that afternoon a large group of family took her out for dinner in the town of Indiana, PA. It's where she lived as a child and grew up knowing some of the Jimmy Stewart family. We stopped by the museum for a picture of Jimmy Stewart's statue on our way home.

Sunday, after church and a wonderful Sunday lunch, we relaxed and talked and read some very old letters my grandma had received as a child from her aunts in England (her father was a stow-away from England). The letters went back as far as 70 years. One was dated 1936 and a couple of others from 1940 and 1941. Reading them opened up a world of imagination for me. I could see the things they were describing and felt the strain as they talked about the hard times they were experiencing due to World War II that was underway. One of Grandma's aunts lived in London which the Germans were bombing heavily. To this day Grandma isn't sure what happened to them or how long they lived. After some time, the letters ceased to arrive. Life went on, but those brittle pieces of paper provided a link to the past. To loving family known only through letters - somewhere far, far away. Someday, maybe soon, we will make contact with our remaining relatives in England and learn the whole story. A trip to the United Kingdom? Maybe.