Chickadee Lane

My husband came in my office as I was working on this new blog of mine...and says "Why Chickadee Lane?" I quickly replied it reminds me of my grandpa.

I don't have many good memories of being a child. But I never lacked anything that I knew of anyway. I always had shoes, and clothes and food...although sometimes my shoes had holes in the bottoms.

Let me tell you about my Grandpa though. I am an only child. And every summer I got to go visit my grandpa and grandma Koehli. They lived in their motor home in the summer time down in a river valley camp ground. I could hardly wait!! That week or two was pure heaven to me! I got to be me! A kid! I collected worms in a tin coffee can full of dirt, I played in the camp playground, cooked over the fire with the "Master fire cooker" (aka my grandpa). No one could cook on the fire like him. We had toast over the fire with butter and jam as a bedtime snack every night...and of course marshmellows. Which no one could brown and toast like him with out catching theirs on fire! My grandpa would piggy back me up the hill...well as far as he could anyway...and we would walk through the wild grass and pick strawberries. And every morning my grandpa and I would walk. We would walk and talk and he would teach me about birds. I know the song of the chickadee, the white throated sparrow, the purple, and gold finches, the sparrows and pine sis cons, the "upside down bird" we called it when I was little, but really its called the nuthatch, the wood peckers, and magpies who would always steel the squirrels peanuts, and the robins. He would take me to see where the robins always hid in the bushes and nested and laid their pretty blue eggs. I could go on and on...but his favorite was the Chickadee...chickadee dee dee...springs here, springs here! Grandpa would say!

I will never forget the day he introduced me to a friend and his wife who were walking by our campsite...and he said "this is the apple of my eye". I didn't even know what it meant...but deep in my heart I knew he loved me so much.

I miss my grandpa. Even know I tear up with the memories I could go on and on about. There isn't a man who loved me more as a child. We were kindred spirits. My grandpa died when I was 16. I really wish he could have met my husband and my kids. He would have been so proud of me. And they really would have loved each other. One day I hope I will see him in heaven...but I don't know for sure. I miss you Grandpa Koehli, and I will make sure my little ones know about all the birds, and I will take them to the pond to watch the ducks. I love you.