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Home Is Where Memories Are Made

By
Real Estate Agent with Transaction Alliance 513.520.5305 www.LizTour.com SAL.2002007747

George SpearI was raised a nomad, a natural byproduct of a father that was enlisted Army and then an office manager for a construction company.  I was born in Anchorage Alaska, my brother born two years later in Okinawa and my sister 5 years after that in Maryland. 

Before my 26 years in Ohio I've lived in Michigan, Texas, Alabama, North Carolina, South Carolina (5 places), Louisiana, Virginia, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island (and somehow I feel like I'm leaving out a place or two).  Until junior high we rarely stayed any place much more than a year.  Throw in midshipman training tours and two sea tours after graduation from Annapolis and I've been a lot of places in my life. 

But some of my strongest family memories are from places I never lived, but only visited.  My dad is from a small town in Alabama called Clanton and his father passed away years before I was born.  My mother is from an even smaller town in West Virginia called Cass and her mother passed away early in my life, so my memories of my grandparents are pretty much Grandma in Alabama and Grandad in West Virginia.  My dad's job never had more than a couple of weeks of vacation a year, and we often didn't live near either grandparent, so most years didn't involve "real" vacations as most people know them, but instead visiting one of the two grandparents. 

And those memories are some of my strongest growing uCass West Virginiap.  Long drives with my family, loading up the station wagon with sandwiches in the ice chest, playing license tag games, etch-a-sketches and little handheld pinball games and asking "Are we there yet??" as the miles rolled by. 

The memories are packed with sights and smells. 

My grandmother used to bake dozens and dozens of pound cakes to sell at the Montgomery Farmer's Market to help make ends meet.  I smell a fresh pound cake today and I'm 10 years old again.  Alabama was the family reunion at the country church with banana pudding, lemon meringue pie, red velvet cake, fried chicken, mac and cheese, cole slaw and green beans and much more down the concrete tables behind the church. There was no air conditioning in the church, sitting on hard wooden pews and waving those little fans to cool off and never knowing if the preacher was going to go long or short on the sermon, but you knew you'd best behave!  It was my uncle visiting in his Navy dress whites and all those tattoos on his arms and chest.  It was meals around the table and saying the blessing before eating and Yes Sir, No Sir, Yes Ma'am, No Ma'am and Thank Yous.  It was riding on the boat on the lake with my aunt and uncle and going out for a fish dinner and hushpuppies.  It was hot and it was red clay that stained your clothes and fireant hills you'd kick and run before they stung you, and it was keeping an eye out for black widow spiders during the Easter Egg hunt.  And while I don't have any digital pictures from that time, it would probably be me, my dad and brother all with flattop haircuts :) 
West Virginia

Visits to my grandfather's home in West Virginia has its own set of unique memories.  The smell of the mountain air in those hollers is unlike anywhere else I've ever been.  Rippling streams and rivers burbling over rocky bottoms as you walk into the chilly water and move and stack the rocks and watch for salamanders and crawdads.  It was trainrides on the Cass Scenic Railroad up the mountainside riding the tourist cars as the locomotives belched massive clouds of coal smoke out the stacks and that train whistle you'd hear for miles and miles.  

Cass was a company town, so it was rows of white clapboard homes and a general store where you could buy pig in a poke candy packs for a dime and wax cigarettes filled with some juicy substance.  It was my grandfather's beehives and yes, getting stung sometimes.  It was outhouses and pumping water by hand from the well and picking wild strawberries in the fields and riding with my grandfather while he looked for ginseng.  It was the huge radio telescopes at Green Bank.  It was my grandfather's collections of old glass electrical insulators and antique bottles.  It was buttercups and meadow flowers and all kinds of wild animals. It was looking (and sometimes finding) old Mercury dimes in the overstuffed chair out on the front porch.  It's the old family homeplace on top of the mountain and just a little further down is the family plot where my grandfather and many of my ancestors are buried.  And it's my brother's final resting place too.

So while I never lived in either place for more than a week or two at a time, these places are where memories were made, and isn't that what home is all about?

Need a place to make your own memories in the Cincinnati area?  That's what we're here for!  Just give us a call at 513-520-5305 or email Liz@LizSpear.com.  We look forward to hearing from you! 

Serving Warren County Ohio's home sellers and buyers,

Bill of Liz and Bill aka BLiz

 

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Serving Warren County Ohio & Adjacent Areas

The Liz Spear Team of Transaction Alliance
Elizabeth Spear, ABR, Ohio License SAL.2002007747

William (Bill) Spear, Ohio License SAL.2004011109  Kentucky 77938
Ask for us by name if you visit the office!

EHO
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Comments (15)

Anna "Banana" Kruchten
HomeSmart Real Estate - Phoenix, AZ
602-380-4886

Bill you hit it on the nail - home is where our memories are made Love your story of your childhood family trips to Grandma & Grandpa's home.  It was kind of like I could hear you telling the story (like John boy did on the Waltons) and everybody was listening intently to every word!

Mar 26, 2017 03:52 PM
Liz and Bill Spear
Transaction Alliance 513.520.5305 www.LizTour.com - Mason, OH
Transaction Alliance Cincinnati & Dayton suburbs

AB, There are so many memories. My grandfather lived in two houses as I grew up (the first burned down and melted all that glass and his old coins), my grandmother in three homes.  When we lived in Louisiana (6th grade through high school graduation) it was about a 9 hour drive to my grandmothers.  One or two weekends a month my parents would pull us out of school early on Friday and we'd drive to my grandmother's home, getting there late.  Sunday around noon we'd head back home :)

Mar 26, 2017 04:10 PM
Paul S. Henderson, REALTOR®, CRS
Fathom Realty Washington LLC - Tacoma, WA
South Puget Sound Washington Agent/Broker!

It's funny that you went into the Navy and your father was Army and my father was Air Force and I went into the Navy Bill. The only difference is we only moved once and it was 46 miles from one Air Force Base to the other. Thank you for entering my challange and I very much enjoyed your entry Liz and Bill Spear

Mar 26, 2017 05:34 PM
Kathleen Daniels, Probate & Trust Specialist
KD Realty - 408.972.1822 - San Jose, CA
Probate Real Estate Services

Bill, Yes, that is what memories are made and what home is all about. You took me down a memory of a station wagon ride across the US to visit my Dad's parents. Are we there yet?  Boy have times changed. 

I remember the wax cigarettes filled with juicy substance ... but what on earth are pig in a poke candy packs?? I will now ask Mr. Google to see if he knows. 

Mar 26, 2017 05:37 PM
CA COASTAL ESTATES Lauren Selinsky Perez CRS
California Coastal Estates - Aliso Viejo, CA
"Your Real Estate Broker" #oclauren

What an enjoyable story. I felt like you took me to your country home with the fried chicken, pound cake and banana pudding.

Home is where the heart is....

Lauren Selinsky

Mar 26, 2017 05:40 PM
Liz and Bill Spear
Transaction Alliance 513.520.5305 www.LizTour.com - Mason, OH
Transaction Alliance Cincinnati & Dayton suburbs

Paul, To muddy it up a bit more, I was born at Elmendorf AFB hospital!  I think my dad was out of the Army about the time I turned 5.

Kathleen Daniels , A pig in a poke was a plain white bag with unknown contents, primarily penny candy, pixie sticks, etc.  You bought it and hoped for your favorites to be in there :)

Lauren, Going to my grandmother's house when I was little she'd have white pasteboard boxes stacked up to the ceiling in the kitchen as pound cake after pound cake finished up.  Hard to find anything else like it to this day.

Mar 26, 2017 05:55 PM
Kathy Streib
Cypress, TX
Home Stager/Redesign

Bill- it's interesting because I think so many of us have fond memories of time spent with our grandparents. It's funny that when we think of our childhood memories we think of the food that we ate...our grandmother's homemade pies and cakes, someone's homemade fried chicken, and so forth. 

Mar 26, 2017 06:12 PM
Liz and Bill Spear
Transaction Alliance 513.520.5305 www.LizTour.com - Mason, OH
Transaction Alliance Cincinnati & Dayton suburbs

Kathy, I think many of my memories are tied to food at the time, sitting in Jackson Square in New Orleans as a high school senior eating a sandwich, foods tried overseas (best fajitas ever?  Bahrain in the Persian Gulf!), and of course we all have favorites that our grandparents and parents made.  Unfortunately I think those recipes often get lost from generation to generation.  I think my mom has that pound cake recipe at least :)

Mar 26, 2017 08:01 PM
Liz and Bill Spear

Kathy, It's a shame that knowledge is getting lost.  My grandfather knew things about those mountains I could never hope to know.

Mar 27, 2017 04:32 PM
Kathy Streib

Liz and Bill Spear my grandmother didn't use recipes so what we learned came from watching her cook.  My sister-in-law's family made homemade tamales on Christmas Eve but newer generation no longer makes them. 

Mar 27, 2017 03:03 PM
Sam Shueh
(408) 425-1601 - San Jose, CA
mba, cdpe, reopro, pe

The childhood home I ever remember is NOW an underground garage for a high rise. It was farms, then university library etc.  What a surprise to know.......

Mar 27, 2017 07:40 AM
Liz and Bill Spear
Transaction Alliance 513.520.5305 www.LizTour.com - Mason, OH
Transaction Alliance Cincinnati & Dayton suburbs

Sam, The same has happened to some of the places I lived.  A new house in their place, or just an empty spot.  Google maps can show us a lot.

Mar 27, 2017 07:52 AM
Dick Greenberg
New Paradigm Partners LLC - Fort Collins, CO
Northern Colorado Residential Real Estate

Hi Bill - And I thought I had lived in a lot of places! Like you, my grandparents' homes, and the experiences I had there, were very special, and those memories are still very much with me today.

Mar 27, 2017 11:45 AM
Liz and Bill Spear
Transaction Alliance 513.520.5305 www.LizTour.com - Mason, OH
Transaction Alliance Cincinnati & Dayton suburbs

Dick, And that's despite staying in the same home for the last 25 years :)  There's just something special about visiting the grandparents, and perhaps even more so in my family's case since the time was generally short.

Mar 27, 2017 04:33 PM
Thom Abbott
MyMidtownMojo.com |770.713.1505 | Intown Atlanta GA Condo Living - Atlanta, GA
Midtown Atlanta GA Condos For Sale

Great, great, great story Liz and Bill Spear !!! (I'm gonna kinda borrow this!)

Mar 27, 2017 07:48 PM
Liz and Bill Spear
Transaction Alliance 513.520.5305 www.LizTour.com - Mason, OH
Transaction Alliance Cincinnati & Dayton suburbs

Thom, Glad you liked it!  Enjoyed your Montana story too :)

Mar 27, 2017 08:40 PM
Elva Branson-Lee
Solid Source Realty GA - Atlanta, GA
CDPE - Atlanta Real Estate & Short Sale Agent

Bill, trips to stay with the "Grands" were always the best vacations for kids when I was growing up, too. Thanks for sharing.

Mar 31, 2017 04:59 AM