By Linda Ibbitson Hurd
Special to The Express
My Grandfather Cyril, better known as Spud, and his two brothers owned a local cranberry bog in the 1960s. Grampa and my Grandmother Edrice also worked for the National Cranberry Association in Hanson that eventually was renamed Ocean Spray. Grampa worked the press and Gram screened the berries. The berries were picked by hand back then, scooped and put in wooden boxes where they stayed dry and protected until they were taken to Ocean Spray to be made into juice and sauce. Grampa stored the boxes of berries in the loft of his barn which was across the street from their house and diagonally across from ours.
My friend Donna, who was 12, and a year younger than me, lived next door with her aunt and uncle and their four sons. One Friday after school I asked my mom if Donna could come to supper and stay overnight. She said it was okay if it was okay with Ann, Donna’s aunt, which it was. It was a warm November afternoon and Donna and I went for a walk in the pine grove off of Elm Street. On the way back we passed by my Grampa’s barn and walked into the barnyard to visit Mike the ram who was a big white sheep with no horns. He was gentle and let the smaller kids ride on him.
I opened the barn door so Mike could go in. The smell of hay greeted us and brought back memories. I remembered grampa putting me on a three-legged stool when I was about five. He put his big hands over my little ones and we milked one of the cows. He turned our hands to one side where the barn cats were waiting for a taste and we squirted milk into their mouths. They were so cute and funny that we laughed. Donna brought me back to the present when she said, “Let’s go up to the loft.” We climbed the stairs and saw wooden boxes full of cranberries stacked on both sides of the loft. We looked at each other. “I got this side, you take that side!”, I said and so it began. I saw something move as I ran to the other side of the loft. Mike was perched on top of a pile of hay watching us.
Through shouts and squeals of laughter we threw handfuls of berries at each other.
There were berries strewn all over both sides of the loft and the floor below. I saw the sun setting through the window and knew it was getting close to supper time. I told Donna we better get going or we’d be late.
It was getting dark when we left the barn and walked down the street the short distance to my house. Mom greeted us with a big smile and the aroma of spaghetti sauce filled the kitchen, making me very hungry. Donna and I washed up and set the table for mom.
When we were almost finished eating, the phone rang. There was a wall phone in the kitchen near the dining room and Dad got up to answer it. He didn’t say much, just listened, ending with, “Yup, I agree”.He sat down at the table, looking across at mom, then at me and Donna while my siblings looked on. “That was Grampa on the phone”, he stated, giving us a harsh look. My heart sank and my stomach churned; Donna hung her head. “It seems when Grampa got home tonight he noticed the barn lights were on and his neighbor came out to tell him he heard a lot of noise in the barn this afternoon. Do you know why he’s upset?” Donna and I nodded in unison. “Grampa is meeting you both over there in five minutes, good luck.”
Donna grabbed my hand and was shaking and crying as we walked over. I was trying to calm her down even though I was scared myself. Grampa didn’t raise his voice but was very stern, telling us every single berry that wasn’t damaged needed to go back in the boxes and to make sure there was no hay on any of them.
He explained how important the berries were to people who made their living growing and selling them and what trouble he would be in and how much it would cost him if the berries were damaged and couldn’t be delivered. He told us how important it was that this get done tonight because they were being taken to Ocean Spray tomorrow morning to be processed. He also told us that each berry cost a penny and whatever we didn’t get back in the boxes, we would owe him. Before he left, he said he’d see us in the morning at eight o’clock at the barn and to be on time. We counted the berries that were ruined, and we owed Grampa a total of ninety two cents. We both took money out of our piggy banks to pay him. We finally got to bed that night at midnight.
We were at the barn on time the next morning and Grampa was outside waiting for us. He was a slender man, and a bit of light red hair was still visible through the strands of white and grey. He commended us for a job that he said was done even better than the mess we had made, which made us blush. He was looking at me and there was a twinkle in his blue eyes and a smile he was trying to hold back. “You are a true Ibbitson”, he said, “now you both take your money and put it back where it came from; I think you’ve learned your lesson well”.
With that, his brothers, Hollis and Edwin, who were my grand-uncles, drove up in their trucks. After greetings and goodbyes Donna and I each went home to our own houses, we were exhausted.
Thanksgiving was less than two weeks away and we were going next door to my grandparents that year. I was still feeling bad and ashamed at what I had done and so was Donna, even after we had apologized. I was also thinking about all I had found out about my grandparents that I hadn’t known. I knew they both worked but didn’t realize it was in the same place or that Grampa was part owner of a cranberry bog. I was also still perplexed about what Grampa said to me about being a true Ibbitson.
When Thanksgiving Day finally came, we could smell the turkey before we entered the house. Once inside, the mood was festive, and we all sat at the big round table with enough leaves in it to accommodate all of us. Grace had been said and we all dug into the delicious meal. Every year that I can remember, my four uncles, my dad and Grampa would start telling stories. That year it was about things they did growing up. The stories were funny, entertaining, some a bit daring and some tender and it dawned on me, I was just like them and that’s what Grampa meant. A very nice feeling encompassed me. I felt safe, accepted, loved and very thankful for my family.