Grampa and Gramma's House by denny bastian 2012 My 75 year old Grampa sits melancholy in the back yard beneath the purple grape canopy. He stares absentmindedly off into space as he rocks slowly back and forth, in his old weather beaten chair. A chocolate brown pipe rests lazily in his right hand resting on the knee of his thick woollen pants; a wisp of tobacco smoke rises from it. He is caught in a younger man’s dream reminiscing his younger years when he farmed the black, fertile soil in the old country. Breathing deep, he imagines the sweet smell of new cut hay, the organics emanating from the horse barn, the chicken coup, and the pig sty. He smells the fruit and vegetables being canned on the hot iron stove and the cool dampness of the root cellar where they will be stored.  He smells the purple grapes being pressed and bottled to make homemade wine which will be aged and generously shared with his neighbours after the harvest time. He will recall the happy music of the accordion, the food, laughter and dancing, and the sharing of weather stories in his kitchen.  He will remember too, a harrowing escape from the marauding Bolshevik army who will steal his land from him. Within the little two bedroom white stucco house on the corner of Spartan and Fairview Streets, Gramma’s cherished cuckoo clock tic tocs away but sadly it doesn’t cuckoo anymore, the little cogs that opened the door and let the two wooden children out to dance finally wore out. It really doesn’t matter though, because when you are a farmer there are many more important things to look after than tinkering with the old clock.  After scattering flour so the dough won’t stick to the counter, Gramma pushes, pulls, pushes, and pulls, kneading it with her rough and calloused hands shaping mounds which she will soon place in rectangular baking pans ,dark brown, almost black from years of use, then slide them onto a rack in the middle of her spotlessly clean oven. Just before they are baked through, she, with brush in hand, will slather their tops with butter to give them a crusty golden sheen when they are done. Then perhaps she will make coffee cake or dozens of peppermint cookies sprinkled generously with sugar. I will drool all the while and follow Gramma throughout the kitchen. This home has the odour of sweet organic pipe tobacco and fresh baked bread. It has the sounds of fresh laundry on the clothes line snapping in the wind, the tic toc of the old clock, the creak of wood floors and the sound that an old wooden rocking chair makes when it crunches the linoleum. It has the rattle of the water pump handle and the suction sound as water is drawn into the kitchen sink.  This house tells me stories of ancestry in Grammas own words as I sit beside her at the kitchen table following her finger as she points to the newspaper clippings she has saved and carefully pasted into her scrap books. This house explains the struggles of the past, and the joy and victory of being new immigrants to Canada.  Yet, some stories will never be told, they do not have to be explained at all for they are written in wrinkles  lifelines on the faces of those who live here. I love this place.