Uhlerstown Hill Road

On Sunday I went out to my grandparent's house in PA to help take care of them and hang out with them so that my mom could hang out with her good friend who was visiting from Arizona. I would write the good friends name, but I am afraid that I would spell her name so atrociously that it would just be embarrassing.

My mom and her friend went for a walk in the woods while I stayed at the house and made my grandparents tea and cheese and crackers and talked to them about my life. My grandfather asked me where my sister, Natalie was and I told him that she is in Africa, serving in the Peace Corps. He asked me where my mom lived, and I told him. He asked me who was watching the TV and I had to tell him that Uncle Tony was watching the TV.

Each time I would tell him something he asked me, he would look at me quizzically and nod, as if he knew he was supposed to know the answer to the questions that he was asking, but he just couldn't come up with the answers anymore.

That's the way it's been for a while at their place. My grandfather worked until he was 85 or 86 years old. He had a manufacturing shop called the Bart Corporation - named after my youngest Uncle, Bart - and I used to work for him when I was a young teenager packaging things like washers that were the would be pieces to some larger machine in some faraway place. I don't remember what I got paid for doing the work, I don't think it was very much. I do remember that my favorite thing to do on the job was to seal the little washer packages with this hot glue machine. Oh, it was so cathartic.

At one time, my Cousin Tad's ex girlfriend Rachel was working there with me. She was an addict and she would constantly complain to me that her beeper was shut off by the company more times than it had been turned on. I always thought Rachel was a nice enough girl, she and Tad dated when I was around 13 years old or so, I remember my age because I have a vivid and horrific memory of being awoken one night when I was sleeping over at their house by the sounds of Rachel and him having sex. A couple of years ago when I came home for some family holiday, my cousin Phoebe, Tad's sister, told me that Rachel had been arrested for murder and that she had killed some old man for drug money. I was shocked. I had not seen her in a really long time and I never thought she would commit such a crime, and until that day I would have been able to tell you that I had never known anyone who committed a murder.

My grandfather was in good health and his memory was intact until well into the age of 90. And then, shortly after he turned 91, he got Lyme Disease and that really messed him up. He has never been the same since. I just don't know what happened. It was like overnight my Konka (grandfather) turned into the frail, feeble old man that I had never known before.

Ga, my grandmother, has been having memory problems for quite some time, but I never thought I would see the day that she had a better memory than Konka. I think she started getting dementia when I was around 16 or 17, she would just repeat the same stories over and over again. It used to bother me, but now I do not mind it at all, because it means that I still get to talk to my grandparents.

I do my best to treat my visits there like adventures. I like to think of it as a privilege that I get to recreate Ga and Konka's memories for them each time I see them. I am also grateful that they both still remember who I am.