Granddad & Grandma Ryals

Aunt Janice gave me Granddad's Masonic ring when we saw them recently, so I started going through some memories. He loved to keep busy, and he loved his garden. I believe those are tomatoes he's got in the basket. He liked a platter of sliced tomotoes for just about every lunch and supper. The main entrance to his and grandma's house was through the back door, and they had a sort-of pantry/coat-room you had to go through to get into the kitchen. He had a metal shelf stocked with "canned" (pressure cooked in mason jars) veggies and jellies. The kitchen had an old formica table where we ate all of our breakfasts and lunches.


He didn't like messes. That's the side of the garage. Every visit started with two things. First, he would tell me the story about how he drove all night across the Texas panhandle singing "Little Brown Jug" to me. I was holding onto his finger, and everytime he thought he had me asleep, I would shake his finger and say "More Grandpa." He told me that story about once a day. Second, he gave a tour of the garden. "Look, I've got grapes this year. Muscadine." Every visit ended with complex driving directions, complete with biographies and genealogies of the people who lived in the houses he hoped we would be driving past.

When I was a kid, he loved to pull a turnip out of the garden, rinse it and peel it with a pocket knife, and get me to eat it like an apple. I was into it. Every summer we would sit in front of the tv, watching Grandma's soap operas, and shell peas for hours. He would get mad at Uncle Wilson for going into the water melon patch, cutting just the heart out of melon, eating on the spot, and pitching the rest of it.

Grandma did not love to keep busy, though she loved to feed us, and was proud of her chocolate pie. Her favorite games were Liverpool and Uno, and she wanted to win. She always had a good time, and liked to beg us not to take the cards she wanted. "Don't you wuv me?"

She ran a drug store with a soda fountain when they lived in Whitedeer, Texas. The sugar helped ruin her teeth. She always gave us a big thrill by taking out her false teeth and chasing us around to kiss us. Although she loved to laugh, she could not abide being tickled. Lots of stories about pans and other dangerous items being thrown in self defense. She was a knick knack collector, and liked little blown glass animals and porcelain figurines.