We recently went out to eat at a popular seafood restaurant and I had a hankering for some Dungeness crab. I was stunned when it turned out to be $40.00 for one person, a la cart! Yikes!
I feel like I'm automatically going to age myself now, but "when I was a kid" my family and I would drive the hour and 20 minute trip to grandma and grandpa's house for visits. They lived near the Oregon coast and truly lived off the land and from the sea. They canned fruit and vegetables from the garden, butchered the pig, milked the cow, hunted for venison, fished for and smoked their own salmon, gathered eggs from the chicken coup, killed a chicken for Sunday dinners and even bottled their own root beer.
I feel like I'm automatically going to age myself now, but "when I was a kid" my family and I would drive the hour and 20 minute trip to grandma and grandpa's house for visits. They lived near the Oregon coast and truly lived off the land and from the sea. They canned fruit and vegetables from the garden, butchered the pig, milked the cow, hunted for venison, fished for and smoked their own salmon, gathered eggs from the chicken coup, killed a chicken for Sunday dinners and even bottled their own root beer.
I remember the two mile trip to the bay, pulling up the crab traps and filling gunny sacks with large, live, Dungeness crabs. We'd take them back and grandma would have a huge pot of boiling water waiting. In just a few minutes we'd be out on a newspaper covered porch brandishing nut crackers and chowing down on as much fresh crab as we desired, washing it down with the worlds best root beer ever!
For entertainment, rather than watching TV or playing video games, we'd all go over to the beach, build forts of drift wood, play tag with the surf, look for shells, and build big bonfires on which we would roast and then eat gritty hot dogs and smores! Being Oregon it was mostly cool, cloudy and windy which made the fire extra appreciated once the sweat from all our activity began to cool us down.
In the morning grandpa would be up before the sun, cooking pancakes, eggs and my favorite, back strap of venison fried in Bacon drippings!
Occasionally my Aunt Lori (who was only a year and a half older than me) and I would find ourselves alone in the house and we'd sit chatting at the kitchen counter/bar drinking heavily sweetened cups of coffee from the ever present pot of it, (the real stuff, no decaf in grandpa's house) our 10-13 year old selves feeling quite grown up.
In the evenings grandma would gather us all around the piano where we would brandish our choice of maraca's, bongo drums, tambourine or kazoo to accompany her rousing rendition of the boogie-woogie. It was loud, cacophonous, dissonant and totally wonderful.
On dry day's Aunt Lori and I could be found having tea on the wooded lot next door in our "house" made of branches and blankets or taking the quarter mile walk to the little 'mom and pop' market for candy. On rainy day's we might be in the attic making outrageous concoctions of Sugar Babies and Bubble gum in the Easy Bake oven.
There was always a long row of shoes and boots behind the gas heater and next to it grandma's rocking chair. Over her chair was the kitchen pass-through where Grandpa might be heard laughing with deep airy chuckles that you had to join in on, no matter how hard you tried to resist.
At no time did we spend more than $20.00 for a whole weekend full of food and fun for two families and assorted friends...boy have times changed! Thanks grandpa and grandma, up there in heaven, for showing us how wonderful life can be with resourcefulness, elbow grease, imagination and love.
Go swim in the Oregon ocean
But to your wet suit be true
For there is no magical lotion
That will keep you from turning quite blue!
