"Cornhole is like horseshoes for white people," I overheard. Whether the words are valid or not, they were enough to shove me across 30 years and straight into a puddle of memories.
Grandpa Lew. He loved to play horseshoes.
The thing about having grandparents who never really approved of their daughter's choice in spouses is that the relationship tends to disintegrate completely when the glue passes away. The glue was my grandma, she who refused to let her pure hatred for anyone get in the way family gatherings for holidays and such. Once she was gone, that was it. No more trips to the farm. No more trips to see Grandpa Lew. No more anything.
But before that, most Sundays and all holidays were spent at his side. If the weather was nice, I followed him around like a puppy. I did so in no small part because he let me ride the three-wheeler (for those of you too young to remember, they preceded quads -- and disappeared because they were easy to flip). I would ride the three-wheeler all over the gravel pits, to the old farmhouse, and all along the tree row.
The tree row right behind the storage house is where Grandpa Lew spent most of his days.
In North Dakota, the trees always seem to appear in a perfectly straight line. That's because there is someone who remembers planting them. That someone was him. He planted them some 30 years previous. Whether he did it purposely so he would have a shady place for horseshoes when he hit retirement or not, I don't know. I just know that it all seemed to work out perfectly.
Every summer day, right up until the sun set, he would stand out at his horseshoe pits with a cigar in one hand and a horseshoe in the other. I don't know if he was any good or not, but he played in tournaments and sometimes came out the victor.
And sometimes he taught me how to play.
I was only 7 or so, so I wasn't very good, but I got the idea.
I'm pretty sure that's why I didn't totally suck at cornhole the very first time I played it. It's horseshoes for white people, after all.