I cannot believe it, but this time, 20 years ago, I was a freshly graduated kid getting ready for his first year of University. Time starts to fly at some point... I am not quite sure when, but here I am 20 years later. One thing that I was thinking about today, which I think is the absolute best, is what I have been doing on Wednesday nights for the last 20 years.
When I moved into the dorm in late August, 1998, my Grandma told me that she was going to cook supper for me and my sister,(and a few years later, my brother as well). A home-cooked meal once a week was golden when I was living off of dorm cafeteria food, sometimes good, most times... meh, sometimes all you could do was a whip-it and leave (that only happened once, but it was pretty funny for 12 seconds then I wasn't quite sure why I was laughing).
Me and my sister, would get picked up by our grandad and go to my grandparents apartment where we would have a good home cooked meal and a discussion with grandad about current events. We would go into the kitch and help gramma with dishes and have a good chat with her. Grandad would drive us back to campus after the visit and we would do it all again next week.
A few years later, my brother joined in as he was now living in the big city away from home too. Soon after that, grandad got us to catch a bus there and he would drop us off after 'boot time.' Boot time was his nice way of making it easy to leave and with no awkward overstaying. Supper was at 6, boot time was at 8. Simple.
I moved to the other side of the city, no problem, I caught a bus there, and grandad drove me all the way across the city after 8 o'clock struck. My sister got married and we had a new addition to the Wednesday dinners. I have found me a super-dope-female-companion (that is her preferred 'label') and now she comes to the dinners. She also sometimes can rope my grandad into a game of cribbage. My sister now has a 3 year old and she is at the dinners. Life changes all around, but these dinners have been constant.
Life move forward but there was always dinner on Wednesday nights. This year, grandad turned 95, gramma turned 92 and they both moved into assisted living. They get dinner prepared for them now, so they go and eat in their cafeteria with their room-mates. BUT... they have us all come over, same bat-time, different bat-channel. We now have dessert at their new apartment. It is the same deal, just without the dinner.
When they started the dinners, they told me that they saw a lot of families 'grow apart' over time, and they didn't want to see it happen to us. So, they planned a weekly visit. It has worked like a charm. We are all grown and busy with life... but we tend to make it over most Wednesday's for cake or pudding or whatever it is.
The food is always good, but that was never really the point, only the reason to get us over there.
I can't believe that it has been 20 years.
Me and Olivia with my grandparents.
