Dirty Gerty

Two of life’s best smells.🙂.

103 years.

Of a well lived life of family and responsibility. Delicious sugar cookies too.

And.

She drank coffee and ate bacon for more than half of those years.

When I smell either, it brings me back……

To a tiny home filled with welcoming love.

To a time when seven of us piled into the station wagon (with parents who smoked cigarettes😮‍💨at the time) and headed to the magical place of fun and love. For celebration of family and each other.

Gatherings of family and connection.

In autumn, the yearly gathering was called “Brat and Beer”. In regard of Oktoberfest, we would gather inside and outside and stuff our faces with brats and well, beer. (What else is a family of German heritage to do?)🍺🍺

Aka/ Volkfest. German for “people’s festival”. In my German family of parents, grandma and grandpa, brothers, sisters, cousins, aunts and uncles it indeed was a “People’s festival”. We so looked forward to it every year.

We would drive in anticipation of running around this tiny 2 bedroom 1 bathroom house full of love and laughter. And a keg or two or three or four of beer. From mid September until early October as the colors of the trees began to change, we would gather every year for a time and see how each other had changed.

Or had not changed.

The real Oktoberfest in Munich, Germany is a two week festival held each year in Munich during late September and early October. It is attended by six million people.

Our Oktoberfest aka/ Brat and Beer was held on my grandparents’ property in Westmont. Inside. Outside. In the alley out back. The kids would run amok and around and be crazily eating fruit and brats. The adults tap, tap, tapping the keg and celebrating time together. Catching up with each others lives. The good. The bad. The everything.

Never with judgment. Comradery. Family. Support.

There were creeky stairs that led down to the crude and cold basement. I remember one could see the floor through the stairs while heading down them. Memories were chock full of the fun and imaginary times and plays put on by we, the cousin actors. On a whim, sometimes we dressed up in the cedar chest full of clothes. And just pretended to be people we were not. Mainly, we pretended to be grown ups and would mimic the crazy way Uncle Ed laughed or the kooky way Aunt Tari would smile and ask us how we were.

When we would go over the river and through the woods during Christmas holiday times, we would once again anticipate a house full of wonder and love. We brought our snow clothes and planned on putting the plays on outdoors. Building a snow man or two. Snowball fights and running up and down the alley way. Hot chocolate on the stove upon our arrival back inside.

When inside, shoulder to shoulder with everyone during the cold and snowy winter months. Smelling the delicious ham cooking in the galley-like kitchen, the giant pot of potatoes and home-baked side dishes.

The adult drinks were different, more “fancy” during the Christmas holiday time. Folks were more festively dressed up too. Each year the kids grew and sometimes blossomed into people we did not recognize! New faces. New shoes. New glasses. New hips (😄).

And it was loud in this tiny house. Chatting and laughing. All of the sudden accordion music would become louder and the Christmas carols began. The astute of us knew it to be the best time to make our way over to the sugar cookie plates, plunk it down and begin our non stop hand to face munching.

If we were fortunate enough to sleep over, I would always marvel the next morning how spic and span the house became. The leftovers put away, the dishes all cleaned and back in their cabinets.

When I awoke in the morning,

There it was again.

The smell of coffee and bacon.

That’s just how it was done in those days.

No caloric counting.

No obsessive working out

No denial.

Of friends and family.

The daily rituals of exercise came in the form of cooking, cleaning, working, raising kids, welcoming other people in their home.

Considered a tiny home by today’s standards. It could and would hold the lives, stories, hurts and joys of sisters and brothers, mothers and fathers and cousins and friends. All shoulder to shoulder with not much place to move,

And one bathroom.☺️

The tiny home may not have held six million people, but it held the hearts and lives of many people in its core. Through many, many years. Good times. Bad times. At its core it was a place of love. The matriarch and patriarch wouldn’t have it any other way. They held the welcoming nature of come and just be.

Be you.

Be who you are.

Joys.

Hurts.

Births.

Deaths.

Always welcome under their roof.

Each and every time though it never ceased to amaze me that after a family celebration how pristine the house returned to. When we would enjoy the chance to sleep over at their house, I would always marvel at how spic and span and squeaky clean the house would be. Back in proper order the next day after the celebrations, the brats, the beers, the Christmas cookies, and watermelon boats had all be celebrated and enjoyed.

And again.

when I awoke,

it was always to the smell of

Coffee and bacon..

How do they do it I wondered?

To my knowledge there was no such thing as a keurig, instant coffee. The coffee brewed deliciously from an old fashioned handled pot on the top of the stove, served in generous non descriptive sturdy coffee cups.

Just like the house.

Tiny.

Full of love.

With a welcoming front door for guests.

And a back door revolving of family comings and goings.

Just like the matriarch.

Tiny

Full of love.

With open arms and a hug upon entering.

With open arms and a hug upon leaving.

Etched in our memories the smell of coffee and bacon cooking on the stove.

It was always the matriarch that stood at the door to welcome us in, comfort us at night, offer us an ear, offer us a cup, a plate. Mostly though I remember her steadfast way she gently cared for with each and every person who entered their home.

103 years of love and laughter offered in return for our tears and our joys.

What a deal!

The opportunity to learn how to celebrate life with a person who lived a well lived and long and wonderful life.