MY FATHER'S FOLDER: Moments From The Past

You never know when you will capture a moment from the past.

As we were driving on the 101 after yesterdays adventure, Dad comments on how the San Fernando Valley used to be mostly orange groves.

This led to him describing past memories of trips taken with his parents in the Model T and stopping to eat oranges and how delicious they were as they were considered a rarity in Oregon.

This led to fond memories of Christmas's past when he was a boy.

Each Christmas everyone was given a brown paper bag after the Christmas program at their church.  Each bag had an orange, some nuts (usually walnuts), and some hard candy and soft candy wrapped in cellophane.

Each church had their programs on different nights.  Dad recalls how they eagerly waited for those little brown gift bags at the end of the service at several churches. They would go from one church to the next so they could get another one of those little brown bags.

(I also recall our Christmas's in Mexico as we also would receive a small brown paper bag with the same contents except it was peanuts instead of walnuts. I do not recall being to eager to receive one.)

Then Dad recalled how his grandfather had a special closet where he kept the Christmas gifts and how he and his brothers tried to "break" into it to see what was in there.

Today, we had a quiet lunch together of the best chicken quesadillas with pepper jack cheese and guacamole that I have ever made. As we were eating our watermelon dessert, Dad is again reminiscing.

He told of a story that his grandfather told him of when he was a boy.

Back in Kansas, they grew many watermelons so as a boy of about 10, he (his grandfather) took the ax out to the field and they would chop them melons in half and eat them right there.

I hope to capture other of these random moments from the past.