Thursday, November 8, 2007

Grandfather's Apprentice (Part 2)

My grandfather also runs a pizza shop that has three branches. I recall that he modified the recipe of the crust, built the oven and the tin plates to bake it in. Every morning of my early childhood I spent watching him mix the flour and knead the dough. But the exciting part for me and my cousin Andre is in the afternoon, when he gets to inspect for rejected crusts, with us looming in the background, waiting like hungry vultures. Then, he would spread margarine and sugar on top of the "rejected crust," bake it and give it to us for merienda (Spanish for an "afternoon snack").

The old house has several French windows which my grandfather built and I love sleeping in them in the afternoon. This is where you put the pillows in the morning so the sun can shine on them and in the afternoon, when the cool breezes blows, a wonderful time to get a siesta (Spanish for "an afternoon nap").
I have not thought of how he had made much influence in my life not until this Sunday afternoon when I was fixing the broken switch of my study lamp and thought how can I have such a knack for fixing things. Well, not only I have a manual for it at home in Iloilo but I remembered that as a young girl, I would hang like a cloud following my grandfather as he fixes things in the house.
In this more modern times, where families are more nuclear than extended, I feel privileged to have lived at a time when I lived with grandparents, uncles and aunts.

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