At just 4 years old, I enjoyed a butter-dripping cob of sweetcorn fresh off the stalk just about any time. But my dad immortalized this particular moment as I meandered the backyard during a Labor Day picnic on our farm outside Bath, Pennsylvania in 1960.
I particularly remember this day, not only because of the gathering of relatives and the all-the-corn-you-could-eat, but also because, as I played bare-footed, a bumblebee stung me on my sore toe. And if that wasn’t sufficient injustice, it was also my birthday!
Grandma removed me from the crowd to the backseat of her car to calm me because I was “the loudest crier in Northampton County.” That’s it in the background. While my Pappy had been a Ford man ever since he bought his first Model T in 1924, this was a 1952 Chevrolet Fleetline Deluxe Fastback.
The car in front of it belonged to my other grandparents and was a 1953 green and white Chevy Belair with a sun visor over the front windshield. I also spent a good bit of time in that back seat playing with the upholstered rope stretched across the rear of the front seat. Not that I knew it at the time, but such rope holds were referred to as where “a lady would hold and hang her gloves and scarf whilst traveling….”
Although I miss my grandparents and the old cars, I’m happy to say I still get my fill of sweet corn on the cob! (And I no longer cry quite so loudly!)