Running on Coffee and Christ
We are an energetic couple, focused on building a community that is able to impact their families, friends, and their world by; Growing their Faith, Improving their Fitness, and Pursuing their Future.
The topics we discuss, revolve around the hopes that YOU are inspired to better yourself and that you could dare to dream above and beyond all that you have ever imagined for yourself.
Running on Coffee and Christ
Episode 10 Crab Apples, Deli Sandwiches, and Tornado Warnings: Our Nostalgic Spring Breaks
Nostalgia has powerful ways of shaping who we become. In this heartfelt conversation, we journey back to our childhood spring breaks, revealing how these formative experiences continue to influence our values, relationships, and even business decisions decades later.
Growing up in Alabama, "spring break" was originally known as "AEA week" - a time that wasn't about beach parties but rather cherished visits with extended family. For one of us, this meant a week in Ardmore, Alabama, working at an aunt and uncle's convenience store, making crafts, watching classic movies, and enjoying the simple pleasure of deli-sliced meat sandwiches (which would later inspire our business menu!). For the other, it meant road trips to Illinois to visit grandparents who introduced everything from tennis to community theater performances.
What emerges from these memories isn't just nostalgia, but profound gratitude for adults who invested their limited time to make us feel valued, teach us skills, and create spaces where we could develop confidence. The most powerful realization? Often it's the smallest moments - not grand vacations - that leave the most significant impressions on young hearts.
This episode offers a touching reminder of how fleeting time is and why making moments count with our loved ones matters so deeply. As we reflect on tornado warnings, Nintendo games, and Swedish restaurants, we discover that focusing on gratitude for good memories helps outweigh worries about tomorrow.
Take this journey with us and perhaps rediscover your own formative childhood experiences that continue to shape who you are today. What memories are you creating with the important people in your life right now?
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Welcome to episode 10.
Speaker 2:Welcome back, episode number 10. Yeah, so, excited. All right. So here we are. We're recording in another location. We've got a. We're at the big square rectangle table in the in the dining area.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's currently 1030 at night, so we're getting a very late start, but it's just how our days had to go, correct? Calvin has went through a a shift and scheduled change at his work, and so we're navigating that right now. Probably by the time we get used to it, they may change it again, because it's been that way for about four times now in a year.
Speaker 2:It is good that all of my Sundays are freed up now to be able to go to church.
Speaker 1:It is.
Speaker 2:We don't have to worry about if I'm going to be missing in action or anything like that. We're able to focus on our worship, focus on our music and really lead the service for Christ, you know, and really be able to focus on it throughout the week and know that I'm going to be there.
Speaker 1:So it's definitely had its positives.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:But it has its negatives too, which is with everything. But obviously our heart and soul is in this business and the podcast, all the different avenues that God has, that he's placed on our heart honestly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, placed on our heart and opened up doors.
Speaker 1:And it's a lot and sometimes we're like you know it's a lot to manage and handle, but I love all of it, but we just want to do it well and I have to say I think we're episode 10 in. I have learned so much in the podcast. Today, when I did my run, I listened to our podcast and I was like I learned something from myself. I was like I want to be that person that I'm talking about. You know, not that we're fake or anything like that, but like we struggle to.
Speaker 2:You know, it's like when we are giving I don't want to say advice, uh, we're just well, show me a motivational speaker that is speaking about things that they haven't experienced and tell me you believe them, know what, if they've they, if they've got life lessons and they've experienced them, and they're talking about it and just sharing what their journey has been, and you happen to be on the same type of journey, or the same type of struggles, or the same victories or the outlook on life or your business, whatever it is.
Speaker 1:yeah, um, you'll hear it and you'll believe it yes, well, you, well, you know, I, just I want to. I always, I never want to be a hypocrite, you know, I want to live what we do, what we say, you know, and we really are trying hard to do that. Or, as Yoda says, there is no try, you just do right.
Speaker 1:Do or do not, and we've just had a conversation, like we don't, because of the way our schedules work sometimes. Sometimes the way our schedules work sometimes, sometimes we don't have a lot of time to just sit and talk about things that are really important. You know like, hey, we're, what about our future?
Speaker 2:you know, and things like that.
Speaker 1:But you know we were just saying, you know we got to get up and we got to do uh, we got to do our laundry, just like we just said last week in our podcast. But today we're going to kind of have just a little break away and have just a trip down memory lane because Reminisce, reminisce yes, but do you remember when it was called aea week? I do that's now.
Speaker 2:Now, spring break obviously for me was a little different, like aea week. You know, my, my mother was a teacher for a lot of the high school eras and we never went on like vacation to the beach, so that was like spring break. We didn't really ring a bell as like it did like the party scene type thing. You're like going down to the beach for spring break. You know did like the party scene type thing, you're like going down to the beach for spring break. You know that like the thing for college students and high schoolers they wanted to do that we always had family stuff, you know.
Speaker 1:So AEA always registered as like it was just a week to go see the family right, yeah, I know now that it was some kind of Alabama Education Association meeting or something you know that people were at, maybe Alabama educators, don't slap your kids break from school, right. No, I actually think that they were like meeting the actual AEA.
Speaker 1:Oh okay, I think but I could be wrong, but I think that they were. But anyway. Anyway, that's what it was called. But we? I have a confession to make. I don't want to say it's confession, but just a little tidbit. I have never in my life and I'll be 40 this year I have never been to the beach at spring break we haven't been like.
Speaker 2:I know we've been down there when it's been really busy, but it's never been spring break, has it.
Speaker 1:No, we usually can't get away that early in the year to go anywhere like that. No, I'm talking about growing up. We never went to the beach or anything like that during spring break. So I honestly only know the wild party scene spring break from people that participated in that like at school, like if they came back in we're talking about it or they were not talking about it yeah, it's like don't talk about what happened down there or what happens at spring break stays or just like on tv.
Speaker 1:You know mtv spring break, which yeah that wasn't really on in our house.
Speaker 2:That was always my exposure. If you're over at like some's house or something like that and guys.
Speaker 1:I'm not saying all this as a high and mighty. I never did that. I have no problem that I didn't do that. I think it's fine that I didn't do that, but my parents would not have let me gone anywhere without them anyway, I'm kind of glad you didn't.
Speaker 1:Anyway, moving on. But we did every year, like when I was in my elementary years, and I'm trying to think when we stopped this, and it may have been when my sister graduated high school she was five years older than me, so she was a senior when I was in seventh grade but we always went to my aunt and uncle's house in Ardmore, tennessee, for spring.
Speaker 2:That's like right on the state line, right For.
Speaker 1:AEA week or spring break? Yes, it's like you can. There's an Ardmore Tennessee and an Ardmore Alabama and it's like separated by this railroad or whatever.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's right, you go into the railroad tracks.
Speaker 1:Yes, but they live on the Alabama side of it and that it was set in stone. That's what we were going to do, I believe. Like on the Saturday before spring break, like we were out of school, they would come down and pick us up and we would ride home with them and then my parents would come up there and pick us up to bring us back home the following Saturday. So we were there Saturday to Saturday.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:And we had the best time. Like I looked forward to it so much did they have they had a gas station.
Speaker 2:Did they have the movie rental place also?
Speaker 1:yes, the movie rental place was with the gas station. Like you go to the gas station, you would go down this little step down area where there was, like all the videos you know and that was the dining area.
Speaker 2:Now, that's not even the same store, oh my goodness, okay.
Speaker 1:So do you remember when they had the movie rental place? I do remember that that was the original store, okay, and then they bought the one across the way.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:And that one across the way used to be my grandmother's restaurant. There's just a lot there, but anyway, it was called Bethel Grocery and so we knew that when we went there that we were, we didn't like, they didn't just like have all these things like planned for us, like they were not. We're taking you to Six Flags, or we're taking you to this place, or we're doing this.
Speaker 1:You know, like we were home with them yeah, just hanging out right yes, and those were some of my first um experiences with like nintendo, because my aunt and uncle they did not have children, so my sister and I were so spoiled, honestly, when we went up there like all their attention was on us. My aunt was very crafty and she would paint she could. This is when like stenciling and sponge painting was in style. Like every time we went up there her walls and stuff would be different because she was just very creative and she wasn't afraid to try new things.
Speaker 2:Now, did she ever do the sponge thing on the wall?
Speaker 1:And we, brought that home to our house and did it there too, and it was paint. And my mom. It didn't last long then, but anyway. But we would make all these different, like wood crafts and like paint them, and this is like the era when it's like apples and watermelons and cows and flowers and things like that.
Speaker 2:Not really roosters.
Speaker 1:Mm-mm Were really popular and so we always made some kind of cool craft that we would paint with acrylic paints and all this stuff we would bring them home. So that was a huge memory to us. But also we would go and help them work their store and as we got older, obviously you were able to do more. But we got to go on the buying trips when they would go to Sam's and get the things that they were going to sell, like candies and all of those things. So I got introduced to Sam like super early and was just like man, this is like the coolest place ever.
Speaker 2:You know little. Did you know that you'd be going there once a week?
Speaker 1:and absolutely dread having to go.
Speaker 1:No, no, it's okay, we've gotten pretty efficient at it yes, we have, but um, so we would work in the store with them and, like, help run the cash register. And my uncle's sister also worked there like she helped. I guess she was, like me, one of their main employees. You know, and this is also where I was introduced to deli sliced meat sandwiches and like we would, it would just be plain white bread and I would get the turkey and then it was wrapped in like cellophane and it was the best sandwich ever. And then we would get to go over to the chips and you got to pick your chips and then they would let you get dessert or because that was another thing, like when we went there the store was kind of ours for the picking, like we could get whatever food we wanted and I remember when we were first trying to figure out what all we wanted to offer here at Sharecroppers.
Speaker 2:So like trying to figure out what food offerings Like it wasn't a hey, we can do deli, it was a. I remember this and I want to do deli slice sandwiches. Because, it was such a nostalgic thing Like this whole entire concept is built around nostalgia of memories from our childhood and growing up it is and our history with our families and that's a part of your history and that's the reason why that meat slicer is in there.
Speaker 2:You're like you called. You called your uncle up and was like hey, which one do I need to buy?
Speaker 1:exactly and like because those sandwiches were so good, like I looked forward to it. I didn't have anything like that, other than when I was there, you know, we didn't. We didn't really have deli slice.
Speaker 2:Buy sandwich meat? We would buy sandwich meat, but that's not the same thing. Yeah, no, no.
Speaker 1:Just so you know, our meat here is not the same as if you went and bought a pack of ham at the store. Okay, so you need to come and try it for yourself. But you know, we got to try these new drinks and stuff. You know, like you have all these 20 ounce drinks in these coolers. You know, and you I mean our parents did let us have things like that, but it's like you were really getting to like, I don't know, just have your pick. You know, can you imagine as a kid, being in front of all these snacks and sodas and just yummy food and like, take what you want.
Speaker 2:Well, like you know what A lot of times people have like indecisiveness when it comes to like their drinks, so they always go with what they're used to getting. Yes, when you're a kid and you're in that situation. You don't have to worry about what you're used to getting Like at home. It's like you're going to pick between Coke or Sprite, because those are the three liter bottles back then.
Speaker 1:That's right counter. We would get two three liter bottles a week and it would be the ones that my parents picked out, and it was usually like a dr pepper and a mountain dew or a coke, but there's so much to choose from if you're in like a gas station I would give anything to see a three liter bottle again yeah, the big old lids oh yeah, oh yeah, as a toilet paper or roll?
Speaker 1:you know yes but you know, as as time went on, you know, and he would always pay us, like we would get money at the end of the week and we would always help her, like one day in the house we would clean house and things, and they, like this wasn't some like looking back, it wasn't some kind of forced labor or anything like that, you know, like it was just like it was fun they were teaching us skills and you know, when we came home, we were better for it and they were like hey, when you work, you get this.
Speaker 1:And so I remember like we would work and then, like on that Thursday or Friday, we always went out Like and we would go shopping. They would take us out to eat and we spent our money and I remember like me and Kelly always bought clothes or jewelry and things like that. And then it was like when my parents came back up there, it's like showing them look what I worked for.
Speaker 2:look what I bought the fruits of your labor.
Speaker 1:And they'd be like, oh, that looks so good. Now I will say there was one thing that was a negative. I hope Karen doesn't, Because my aunt and uncle their name is Stanley and Karen but during all of that time Karen was a heavy smoker. I say heavy but I don't really know how many packs she was smoking, but I do remember, Uh oh, Because we would watch. She introduces to a lot of old movies, Like my mom introduced my sister and I to Doris Day movies Like, and we love them. Karen introduces to movies like Gone with the Wind, Singing in the Rain, and so we would watch those movies there. Because, you have to think about it, During this time there's no streaming. There wasn't a ton of cable either.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's either VHS or like bunny ears.
Speaker 1:And so she had some of these things on VHS.
Speaker 2:From the rental store right?
Speaker 1:No, she had these in her own collection at the house, and so we would watch them. Oh my gosh, I loved it so much, but we would sit on the couch and she smoked inside the house too.
Speaker 2:Side note oh, because we were just talking about the VHS. Did you ever have to sit there at the movie rental place and rewind movies?
Speaker 1:I didn't, we always had them rewound.
Speaker 2:Okay Because I rewound, okay because I was always thinking about that. You know like they would charge you they would charge you like 50 cents or something like that on your next rental if when you return something it wasn't rewound. Yeah, because it was an inconvenience to the next customer yeah I was just thinking about that.
Speaker 1:I forgot about that okay, can I go back? Yes, you can, okay. So I remember like sometimes I can see like where we were sitting in the house and everything. But she would like light up that cigarette. Okay, this is another confession. I love the way a cigarette smells when it's first lit up, and I don't, and I think it's like there's a child. There's a memory there of a good time associated with it.
Speaker 2:After that I didn't really like the smell of it, you know like when she's one that when it started puffing, yeah, I didn't, I didn't care for it as much.
Speaker 1:Know like when she's one that when it started puffin yeah.
Speaker 2:I did.
Speaker 1:I didn't care for it as much, but when she would first light that up, I'm not gonna lie. I may have scooted a little closer and was like Well, no, I have.
Speaker 2:I have memories with on on my father's side. His, his father, had like pipe tobacco collection, so smelling the different tobaccos from different areas, like not lit up, but he always had a pipe. You know he had a collection of pipes and tobaccos and I remember going through those drawers just smelling all the different scents from all the different tobaccos, because it definitely smells different raw than it does when you're burning it so I can understand like that connection with that emotion when you're burning it.
Speaker 2:So I can understand that connection with that emotion when you're smelling that.
Speaker 1:Whenever?
Speaker 2:I smell pipe tobacco. I go back to that moment where I'm in his room all over again.
Speaker 1:But you know what, While we were there, I never felt like, oh, I wish she didn't smoke. Honestly, I didn't really have enough education either to know that that was bad for her. And she quit and she has been quit for a very long time and I'm so proud of her. But when we would come home and get all of our stuff out of our suitcase, everything smelled like cigarette smoke and I was like I didn't even realize that it smelled like that or whatever, and that may be a weird memory, but it just it is. And so, like I'm sorry, Karen, if, like, smelling cigarette smoke makes me think good memories of you, but I guess it's something good that came out of the smoking, right?
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:But yeah, and like they also like in their gas station it was, I guess, more of a convenience store, so they would have things like canned ravioli and stuff like that, and so I remember getting yes, getting that for lunch and drinking Sundrops Karen loves Sundrops.
Speaker 2:I had never even Sundrop, never even entered my vocabulary, until your aunt and uncle would bring them down with them. Yes, when we would have family get together she still walks in with two to 20 ounce bottles of sundrop. You know, family get together because she's gonna have her son. There was another drink too.
Speaker 1:It was called double cola. Now they didn't have that as much as my grandmother had that one um, and I believe it's made by the same people that make sundrop. I'm not sure. I just always kind of put those two and two together because I'm like we didn't have either one of those drinks available here down. You know where we live and really still don't. I don't know. Can you get sundrop here?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you can. Okay, you just have to look for it. I just don't see it.
Speaker 1:It's very prevalent up there, though, like they, it's like she brings a sun drop cake at easter or christmas, like it, because people up there make cake. I thought you said keg but if there was a sun, drop keg I bet you might want it cake, cake, but you know, but we would work for the money.
Speaker 1:They would take us shopping and just, you know, spoil us, pay attention to us. I even remember, like when we would go up there like my uncle helping Kelly learn how to drive while she was there too, and and they had the best animals and dogs and stuff and everything was just like wonderful and like there's not a single bad memory and so like and I know they're not perfect people and I know that everything might not have been perfect then memory and so like and I know they're not perfect people and I know that everything might not have been perfect then, but to me it was Like.
Speaker 2:I was safe.
Speaker 1:I had a great time. It didn't require like having to spend money on a big old vacation or spending money on taking somebody here or taking them there, somebody here or taking them there. It was just being with our aunt and uncle and spending time with them and playing 1988 olympics on the nintendo or figuring out crash bandicoot on the original playstation you know, like there was another guy at work the other day that was mentioning crash bandicoot like, like as a as a a memory from his childhood and I was like yeah, I remember that we, we.
Speaker 2:You introduced me to that with the old original playstation, um, and then we've been introducing that to like jude. You know like it's. That's one of those nostalgic games you know, um, but like, like, when I go even back further, I'm thinking about like atari and things like that I never really played atari that much but we grown up we always got, always got the game system. That was like three generations back because we couldn't afford anything that wasn't two or three generations old.
Speaker 2:So when everyone else was like Nintendo and Super Nintendo, I'm like Atari and just entering into that world.
Speaker 1:I don't remember ever asking for one, though. I'm not going to throw my parents underneath the bus, like you never got me a game system. I don't remember ever asking for one, though so, uh, you know I'm not gonna like throw my parents underneath the bus.
Speaker 1:Like you never got me a game system I don't remember ever asking for one. So we had. We had a great life. We did. But you know just, I also do remember this too, like a lot of times when they were taking some, when we would go up for spring break, there was always some kind of storm system coming through. Like I remember one time there was like tornadoes, literally like just landing behind every like we would come out of a town and a tornado would hit it and we and it was just going, following us up the whole way. And I remember one time, like we actually got to their house and as soon as we got there we were in their kitchen and they were throwing a mattress over the top of us.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 1:It's crazy what I think about it.
Speaker 2:Now, we just talked about this because we had some storms come through here just the other day. We were talking about how it feels like there are areas that just get hit regularly and about how the Earth's topographical design has something to do with that. About how the Earth's topographical design has something to do with that, because one of the local EMS was talking about how where we live, it's kind of like a little divot and they don't remember any time where an actual tornado has come through our actual city. It's like it touches before it and after it or goes around it, and I don't know if there's any weight to that, but I do know, like we were talking about, it touches before and after it or goes around it. Yeah, and I don't know if there's any weight to that, right, but I do know. Like we were talking about. You know, there were some subdivisions that consistently get wiped out.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, right close to where they live, and I have to say too, like that was traumatizing growing up, like I remember now this happened in December, but because my aunt and uncle and my grandmother all lived up that way, we went there every weekend or every other weekend, so we were there a lot. Huntsville felt like a second home to me. We always went there to shop and things like that. But I remember specifically the tornado and I would have only been four that came through Jones Valley or South Huntsville and I just remember coming through there after it had happened like maybe a week or so. Well, actually, because that happened in December and we would have been coming up for Christmas and I remember looking and was like where's all those places?
Speaker 2:What's going on? No, were they already cleaned up? Because we're going Like already bulldozed over and everything. It was a mess everywhere. Okay, it was still messy, it was still messy.
Speaker 1:But you know right, when you're coming in the overpasses into Huntsville, you know, and as a four-year-old I was just like what happened Because it looked like a bomb had went off. You know, and then, as the years go by, like you, you would still see that happen on our that journey that we would take, coming up 231 and then going out on 53 to go head towards ardmore. Um, so many places on 53 would get hit. The subdivision, in particular anderson hill, I know got hit twice in my childhood, devastating loss, and these are like huge nice brick homes just demolished, and so I it made me have a huge fear of storms.
Speaker 2:It's gotten so much better now but, um, I was deathly afraid of storms and I think it's because I saw what they could do so too, because, like my experience with like weather, we grew up in a trailer and we would go to our church whenever there was going to be a tornado warnings Like for sure for sure. We would go to our church in the basement. Yeah, and it was just like party. You know Right, because you were there with other kids. Yeah, you got to hang out.
Speaker 1:And you're safe.
Speaker 2:You're safe. And then when there was storms at home, like we loved I loved hearing it on the roof I would go sit on the back porch and I'd watch the lightning and try to see what I could when it was striking outside. I'm taking back on it and I'm like, yeah, I probably should have paid more attention. You know, we didn't have the tv on or nothing, it's just the storm's coming through. It's not a tornado warning, there's no alarm so I'm just gonna hang out.
Speaker 1:And I remember, even you know so I didn't have that.
Speaker 2:I don't think I had that fear. I never had that experience of being thrown up under a and technology changed too.
Speaker 1:Like you know we. I remember the days when we didn't even have those tornado sirens that would go off. You know, you really were glued to a tv, maybe with bunny ears. We had an antenna. You're hoping that it doesn't go out. You're listening to the weatherman in your life, but now it's just, it's so pinpointed and like we can watch it on our phone and there's, there's just so much warning now, yeah, and it feels like you're able to get prepared a lot better and that was the whole purpose of them.
Speaker 2:Now, has it always been like spring break has like, has it changed the timeframe of the year?
Speaker 1:It's sometimes at the end of March. I remember it being in April. Some the last two years it's been at the end of March. I remember it being an April song. The last two years it's been at the end of March, which I think is pretty good. There's been times where it was in early March and it's just way too soon because sometimes it's just too cold.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So I'm glad we have it, you know, in that last week of March, but the original AEA week I'm not sure. I feel like it was April, but you know I could be wrong.
Speaker 2:I was just thinking about, like, if it was like quote unquote tornado season, like the season change, you know, like it always kind of would be, I guess. Yeah, so that was like family and then like full-blown on that On our end was family also, but like it was to go see extended family up north, we would go to Rockford Illinois. That's where my grandparents and my uncle. And how long of a drive is that and we would literally my mom being a single mom in the old family station wagon, it makes me think of Christmas vacation.
Speaker 2:We rode up in that old station wagon.
Speaker 1:What kind was it?
Speaker 2:It was a Pontiac Parisian. And it had the big door that opens in the back of the window.
Speaker 2:Let down, nice and like we would, even while we're driving down the road. Like we were bad kids, we would like take fishing line and dangle like toys out in the on the road, dragging behind the car you know, seeing how far we could let that fishing line go out, and I'm just thankful we didn't get something snagged and our finger ripped off, you know. But but we would, we had. I don't know if my mom ever knew that you know. Sorry, mom, if you're finding this out now, but we ruined a lot of toys by dragging them behind the car. You had to. We would have been really fast before she made a turn, though.
Speaker 1:She probably had no clue. She's probably like I'm a single mom and I'm having a moment just driving, but because of all that activity, we would make it in two days.
Speaker 2:We would do it we, we would make it in two days, we would do it? We would do it. Yeah, we would stay the night and then the next day we'd get to their house.
Speaker 1:Did you have a specific spot that y'all would stop at?
Speaker 2:There was at the very tip of Illinois, the bottom of it, there was always like I'm trying to remember the name of the towns like Marion, and then there was Mount Vernon and I think there was another one. We might have stayed in Paducah a couple times.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think y'all did, but most of the time it was Marion, or Mount Vernon that we would stay in.
Speaker 2:But that was kind of the middle point. It was a six-hour drive there and then six hours the rest of the way, basically.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:And we always had really fun. It was really fun on the way up and on the way down, on the last day on the way down and the first day on the way up, because my mom would always do this thing where she would have a little grab bag and she would put a toy or something in that bag for each kid. And when you cross the state line, you got to get out another toy and open it up and play with it.
Speaker 2:It might be something simple, just a notepad and pen. You know, like something simple. You know it didn't cost a whole lot from the, from the dollar store or something like that, and but it was something new to to, to pique your interest, to basically shut up and sit down while I'm driving you know, leave me alone. So and then when you got into Illinois, it was like long straight ways and whoever was sitting in the front was the quote unquote navigator, so they had the map days, they had the map.
Speaker 2:Yeah, map skills are a lost art in my opinion with most of the new generation. Like we knew how long it was going to take to get from one place to the next, what the dots were, what the numbers were, what the lines were, like we would look for landmarkers along the way and we we'd. Was you use a highlighter to highlight where how far we're going it?
Speaker 2:was a game it was a game to follow along with it, and we had games that we would play like the alphabet, you know, like on the road signs. You have to find the a find the b, find a, c and all kinds of things like that. But we went up there to visit our grandparents and now I come from, I guess, a fairly decent line of educators.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:My mom's an educator, my brother, sister-in-law, both grandparents were both educators. Now my grandfather he was a history teacher, so he was very knowledgeable about history, loved government type stuff yeah and uh, but my grandmother, she was physical education yeah now, this wasn't physical education nowadays, where you it feels like it's kind of can be a catching ground of we're going to do this and we're going to learn something a little here and there, like when I was in school it was you might do a couple jumping jacks and then play dodgeball.
Speaker 1:Yep, that's what we're good to do.
Speaker 2:Or you might go do a couple of squat thrusts or whatever that was, and then go play on the playground.
Speaker 1:And then, like that, one week in the year it was like you're going to take the physical fitness test. The year it was like you're gonna take the physical physical test.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're gonna you're gonna see how long it takes you to run the miles.
Speaker 1:How many pools, how far?
Speaker 2:can you reach, how far can you reach, how high can you jump, things like that. But but when she taught, she taught like they. She taught them all the sports badminton, ping pong, tennis, swimming. They had a swimming pool. They their school was was hoity-toity, I guess I mean it was? It was a large city school right so they had a swimming pool. They you know lacrosse and like all the things that that were sports. She taught them to her students you know so she knew everything yeah so it was always.
Speaker 2:We always look forward to going up there, because we would always do something artsy we would always do something that would pique our interest, like on the art side, whether it was a theater or whether it was a concert or going to museums or things like that, local things, even just community things. A lot of it was community-based. But then also on my grandmother's side of it, she always had a, like a huge tub that she would drag up from the basement and set it right on the back door. The back porch was like a screened in glass porch. We that was like our hangout.
Speaker 2:We would go out there and we would play, cause we could be loud out there and not disturb anyone in the house. But she would have a huge tub out there, big rubber made, and it had all the sports equipment that she was going to be using while we were there and and we never knew what was going to come like. That's where I learned to play croquet. You know, she'd bring all that stuff and set it up and we'd have it set up in the yard for like a couple days and we'd play on it for a couple days and then she would set the badminton net up there and y'all were just talking about badminton.
Speaker 2:The other day you and jude like I'm terrible I think it's the velocity of the bird and the size of the racket head.
Speaker 1:You just haven't been able to make contact no I I look like the goofiest idiot when I'm trying to play that like jude's cracking up about it I'm shockingly bad like you, you can. You don't understand why at all I don't because you, because you can hit a tennis ball. Yes, I can hit a ping pong ball and I can do um. What's the pickleball? Pickleball cannot do badminton I don't know to save my life, like if. If they were like you've got to hit this or we're gonna kill you, they're gonna kill me.
Speaker 2:I cannot hit it but they set up I needed your grandmother to teach me. Oh, and they lived right one road over from a middle school that had tennis courts too. Okay so that's where she would go over there and teach us like tennis stuff you know so that's where I got my first introduction, and we had the wooden rackets too.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:My brother's got a couple of them up in his garage.
Speaker 1:We have one of them, yeah.
Speaker 2:The wooden rackets. Um, and it was like you know you, you're not allowed to hit the ball across the court until you were able to bounce it up and down a hundred times on that racket and control it, you know, like when we first started playing tennis. Just hit it up and down, that's. That's all you can do, and but I have a lot of memories when it comes to going up there with them, because their thing was all about experiencing uh, together.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:You know, whether it was sports together or talking about what you experience when it comes to the arts, like my first operas and ballets and things like that. I was exposed to a lot of culture when I would go up there and it would be community stuff, but it was always good Right, because I didn't get that around here and naturally there probably is that stuff around here that you can go to. But there was a time thing there was a single mother with four kids and I remember AEA. I'm looking back on this spring break for my mother. I cannot help but imagine how much of a relief that was for her yeah.
Speaker 2:Because she didn't have to think about her students. She didn't have to think about whether or not her four kids were going to be provided for. I'm going to start tearing up on this.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I remember her having lazy mornings.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and she would lay in that bed Because she was never getting up and she would read her Bible.
Speaker 2:And she would pray, and she would relax in the couch and and that was like her opportunity to recharge. Yeah, you know, and and she didn't have a help me. No, she had, no, she didn't. And now my grandparents I from what I understand, they did help her out making I'm talking about having another, but having another person when she would go up there.
Speaker 2:She got to have that help, meet the help that was physical and it was like like burdens lifted yes so I imagine her spring break was much more of a different experience than ours was because, ours was activities ours was I mean we got to do stuff. We know we had crab apple trees and we take these rackets out there and we'd smack them crab apple trees across the the subdivision, that now we didn't have subdivisions around here, where I lived. So it was nothing to hit crab something off into the woods and not worry about if it's going to bust someone's window out yeah you know, thinking back on that, I probably shouldn't have been hitting the map because I don't know where they landed.
Speaker 2:You know, I mean we were smacking the mess out of those things and I don't know where they landed. So I'm sorry if you got your window busted and you hear this many years down the road and you think, oh, that was that kid yes but but yeah, that was my spring breaks we.
Speaker 2:There's so many memories that I have from from up there in rockford that that I could have never experienced um down here, simply because um there was, there was thought put into it and there was a phrase. They always said this phrase we don't normally have this or we don't normally do this, so you knew when they would say that it was special to them also.
Speaker 2:So if you did go out to eat the Stockholm Inn the Swedish House coffee mug that I had when you would go out to eat to that place and they would say like no, we don't normally come here. You know like this is special for you.
Speaker 2:We're coming here for you because we want to treat you to this and it really made it feel like they were pouring themselves into us in that very brief moment that they had us while we were there. They didn't have us 12 hours away. They didn't have us but two times a year and they wanted every minute of that to count. And we were just talking about this with our kids, about how fleeting time is, and maybe this is where we can really be thankful and really think about what God has for us in this podcast is that the time that we have with each other is so valuable and it's so important and, even though there might be the stressors in life and the the running around and the going and going, when we really think about the time that we have for each other, we have to make it count because we're not promised tomorrow and you know like I'm looking across this, across this table. I'm like I want my time with you to.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:And I want my time with my teenage boy that is starting to really develop his own personality, his own character. I still want those moments where he's going to lean up against me and say I love you, dad. You know like I still want those moments and I pray that they never end. Yeah, you know, and you just got to latch on to those and say do everything you can to make it count.
Speaker 1:in that moment, I think we have to realize too that we're building memories even in those small things, because when I'm thinking back of some of the best things, it's really small things. It's not the trip to Disney World, it's working at my aunt and uncle's store and earning some money and them taking us out. We would go to the movies too. We saw a lot of movies with them. Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. It's a funny story because my aunt has said that I had to use the restroom, and so she took me. When we went to the restroom, the kids were big, and when we came back they were strong, so you don't know what happened.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and when we came back. They were strong, so you don't know what happened and she was like thanks so much, holly and I'm like that's funny so that's a good memory, but you know, I'm thankful that my memories are good yeah, a lot of people don't have that they don't, and a lot of them do.
Speaker 1:I want you to think back. Sometimes it's it's easy for us to focus on the negative, but think about all the good things that that have happened and that have shaped you, because you wouldn't think that deli sliced meat is going to shape you. Well, it shaped me like. It made that memory, it created an emotion in me that I wanted to be able to give other people. You know, I don't, and I don't know if it's going to do that for anybody. I don't know.
Speaker 2:Well, here's, here's the thought. People don't go to therapy because of good memories. They go to therapy because of bad ones. We need to focus more on the good. Now we were just talking. Remind me what we were just talking about a minute ago, about, um.
Speaker 2:There can't be something when there's gratitude, um there can't be worry worry and gratitude can't be present at the same time that's, that's what we said, because when, if you're thankful for where you're at it, it over, over at it, outweighs the worry that can come up because of what tomorrow might hold. And being thankful has got to be at the top of the list in your life. And I'm thankful that I have those memories of my grandparents. Now both of them have passed on. My grandma almost, almost, almost almost, lived to be 100 and and I'm thankful for the time that I had with her and and I got a lot of funny memories, you know, with both of them, on both fronts, and I'm just sitting here reminiscing in my mind there's a hundred things I could talk about, but I know we don't have all night to talk about it.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna tell you this too Gosh. One of my favorite things about spring break was when my mom and my daddy come and got me Like I was never, like I want to be gone from here. I've been here so long but I was so excited to see my mama and my daddy and they were going to be taking us home, because I loved home too. So I want to thank my mom and dad that they gave us a home that I liked going home to you know, yeah, thanks, mom and dad.
Speaker 1:We're going to start crying now because we just keep sitting here thinking about memories. But before we leave this podcast, we have to talk about our cups today, so we've got some old ones. These are from the style that my grandmother would have, these aren't? I mean, I think she may have had some like these, but these are the pyrex, the old, classic pyrex see that pattern.
Speaker 2:We had milk glass we had that pattern in our some plates, so this is a and this is a pour over.
Speaker 1:I don't know if any of you have um are wondering what that is. What's that strange?
Speaker 2:contraction, just a chemex, just a glass vase that we put a filter in the top of it yeah, and makes really smooth coffee.
Speaker 1:Um, that we've been nursing throughout this.
Speaker 2:It's the kind of coffee that you can drink um from hot to room temperature and it not really alter too awful much, right, you know, because it's not as much particulates in it that settle.
Speaker 1:You know, and thinking about this, like my grandma, I didn't really spend a lot of spring breaks with the grandparents, like I had more summers with grandparents and I had some summers with aunt and uncle too, but spring break was, it was them. And I just looking back to you. I want to just thank them for doing that, that they loved us enough that they wanted to spend time with us. Yeah, and maybe give, I don't know. I wanted to talk to mom and dad. What did y'all do?
Speaker 2:Oh, they partied oh they partied. They both worked, obviously yeah.
Speaker 1:They worked, but you know.
Speaker 2:They probably turned the TV off and said let's just enjoy the silence. Because you were pretty rambunctious when you were a kid. I remember I saw a home video one time and you were wearing your dad's t-shirt and it went all the way down to your ankles and you were just all over that room. You were like back and forth With a baton in my hand.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I had this old baton from Walmart. It was rusted and the the end was poked through it that's how I learned how to twirl baton till I got like a real one, like in fifth grade, you know.
Speaker 1:But yeah, I, I would use that thing at home. I learned how to do it with that thing that didn't weigh anything. I was like, if so, if you can, you can throw something that weighs like an ounce up and it'd be spinning and do tricks and stuff with it. You can do something that's heavy. So anyway, uh, thanks for hanging out with us and going down memory lane.
Speaker 1:Um, hopefully it makes you guys think about uh great memories that you have with your loved ones and be thankful for those memories and make some new ones this year yep and make your days count, and we are so thankful that you are here with us and we hope that the lord blesses you and keeps you and makes his face shine upon you. We'll see you next time.