For the past few years on Memorial Day, we have taken the kids to the SLC cemetary to visit Grandpa and Grandma Lindsey's grave. We usually buy a pot of mums at the Smith's on 6th and E and then do a drive by on G&G's old house on 9th Avenue. A couple of times we have knocked on the door to see if the people who now own it would let us in to see it again. Nobody has ever answered our knock. When we get to the grave site on the corner of Cypress and Cedar, we put the flowers on the grave and look around for other people we are related to. The kids also like to go see the military graves just to the south of G & G's grave site. After visiting the cemetary, we go to Lindsey gardens and have a picnic. We went ice blocking once. Lauren was a natural at it. She must take after her Great Grandpa Lindsey. The hills at the park are in kind of rough shape. They are getting better after some neglect, but are still pretty rough for ice blocking. This year after eating lunch, Mark and I played frisbie and the little boys played on the playground equipment. Lauren had filled up close to 70 water balloons. We hauled them to the top of the hill (by the uppermost baseball diamond) and threw them down the hill. It is amazing how fast you can burn through 70 water balloons. It was really fun. That may become a new tradition for us.
Here are some pictures of our trip this year.
G & G's house on 9th Avenue. Front yard is different, but still looks the same.
G & G's gravesite. Someone else had been there before us and left the red flowers. Steve and Donna said they had been, so maybe it was them.
Great Grandpa and Grandma Lindsey's gravesite
Lindsey Garden sign
Our picnic just off the playground and above the lower baseball diamond.
Looking toward the upper baseball diamond from the playground (another Joseph Lindsey is in the picture)
While we were on the way up, Marsha asked what some of my memories of Grandpa and Grandma were. Here are a few I came up with (it's hard to stop once you get started.)
- I remember grandpa explaining in great detail how he made the dining room chairs in his woodshop class in high school.
- I remember sleeping on the sun porch and looking out over the city at night.
- I remember grandpa pointing out that you can see Mt. Nebo from their house if the air is clear.
- I remember grandma filling in pauses in the conversation with a strategically timed "well well" or "mmm hmm"
- I remember grandpa visiting us in SJ and looking in a yogurt cup that I had just finished and telling me that there were at least two spoonfuls of yogurt left. He then proceeded to scrape two spoonfuls of wax off the container and feed them to me.
- I remember playing hide and seek in the basement.
- I remember trying to break in to grandpa and grandma's house when we got back and the adults were gone and the door was locked. Grandpa found every place we had tried to get in and made comments about it. We never fessed up to it being us, but I'm sure he knew.
- I remember Stef asking grandma if she had a little plastic thing that holds bread bags closed not expecting her to have one, but she produced about 500 of them that she had been saving "just in case."
- I remember the old powder blue Ford that seemed to run forever.
- I remember G&G bringing me a box of Hostess cupcakes that they had kept in the trunk of the above mentioned Ford and they smelled and tasted of gasoline (Camille may remember that as well.)
- I remember the crocheted duck that pooped jelly beans. (Does anybody know what happened to that?)
- I remember the ancient bottle of mayonaise that was in G&G's fridge.
- I remember being right next to grandpa and having to yell to get him to hear me, but grandma could be in the kitchen and speak in conversational tones and grandpa could hear every word.
- I remember G&G telling us stories about Grandpa Schoenfeld with a hand on the door know on each side of the door and saying, "This guy in here won't let me out."
- I remember grandpa forgetting my name (not sure he ever knew it) but always knowing who Marsha was.
- I remember G&G taking me to the MTC when I left on my mission and how nice it was to have them there.
- I remember grandpa's huge collection of stereo-scope pictures.
- I remember grandpa missing grandma terribly after she died.
- I remember grandpa loving to show us his power tools and trains in the basement when we would visit.
- Most of all I remember what wonderful people they were.
Like I said, once you get started, it is hard to stop. I would be interested in hearing some of your favorite memories of G&G as well.
