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Grandma's House Forty Years Later
By Don Iannone

She used to live there,
a long time ago when we were just kids.
How we loved to visit Grandma's house
along the old Moore's Run,
We called it the 'crik' back then,
It was an Appalachian holler,
You know, the kind of place miners and
their large families lived,
We drove past Grandma's old house
in West Wheeling today--
first time in many years.
Old memories flooded back to me,
Times I barely remember.
Grandma's house looked good,
Much better than I expected.
The old wooden swing and flower boxes with
the huge pansies were gone,
But that was a long time ago.
Somebody else lives in her house now,
I don't know them.
We talked to an old man with a ball cap
sitting on Grandma's front porch.
He leaned over the porch to greet us
as our car stopped in the dirt road
in front of the house,
I told him my grandma lived in
his house a long time ago,
He smiled and said "Is that right?"
He couldn't believe ten kids,
including my Mom, were raised in the
dinky little 4-room house,
He didn't know my Grandma, and he
didn't know the old house when it
was yellow with bright green shutters.
The place has running water now,
and the apple trees
in the side yard are long gone.
Even with all the changes,
I could tell it was the same place,
It will always be Grandma Secrist's house to me.
Moore's Run survived
the many hard tests of time,
I admit--I am really amazed,
I thought it would all be gone.
As we drove off, I thought--
I'm really glad someone is keeping
the home fires burning at Grandma's old house.

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