SIDETRACKED: FROM PACKING TO CANNED GOODS

I am easily sidetracked. This morning I was trying to find something I needed to pack and was looking in one of my bedroom drawers, and I found the envelope of old pictures that I've been looking for. And who can resist old pictures? Certainly not me. I looked through all of them, and decided I needed to scan them to my computer. So I got out the book on the printer/copier/scanner and read the directions. I followed them but nothing happened. I went to the printer web site and found that the scanner portion of the three in one machine is not compatible with Vista. Big surprise, uh? Anyhow, I downloaded what I needed to make it compatible and installed the scanner. It works, but not well. The pictures were so dark and I couldn't quite get the hang of fixing them. If all else fails, take a picture of the picture and dump it into a new picture folder called appropriately "Old pictures." So for your enjoyment this morning, here is a picture of my great grandmother and her siblings.
Back row left to right: Mina, Anna, Belva
Front row : Hulda, Martha my great grandmother, Olius, Emma, Olina

It's kind of a Sesame Street moment ~ one of these names is not like the others ~

Don't you love those names? I remember going to visit Grandma Martha in her small home in Wisconsin. There was a small parlor and dining room and kitchen. The kitchen floor had a trap door in it, and if you opened it you could go down the steps to the cellar where all the goodies were kept. Do you know the song "Canned Goods?" Every time I hear this song (words and music by Greg Brown) I think of my great grandmother and her cellar below the trap door in the kitchen.

CANNED GOODS by Greg Brown

Let the wild winter wind bellow and blow, cuz I'm as warm as a July to-ma-to.

Chorus: There's peaches on the shelf, potatoes in the bin, supper's ready everybody come on in. Taste a little of the summer, taste a little of the summer, taste a little of the summer, Grandma put it all in jars.

Well there's a root cellar fruit cellar down below, watch your head now, down you go.
Chorus:
So you say you're weary and you don't give a damn, I bet you never tasted her blackberry jam.
Chorus:
Oh she's got magic in her, you know what I mean, she puts the sun and rain in with her green beans.
Chorus:
Well with the snow and the economy and everything, I think I'll just stay down here and eat until spring.
Chorus:
When I go down to see grandma, I gain a lot of weight, with her dear hands she feeds me plate after plate. She cans the pickles sweet and dill, and the song of the whippoorwill, and the morning dew, and the evening moon, and I really got to go and see her soon, cuz the canned goods that I buy in the store ain't got the summer in 'em any more, and you betcha grandma, as sure as you're born, I'll take some more potatoes in a thunder storm.

There's peaches on the shelf, potatoes in the bin, supper's ready everybody come on in. Taste a little of the summer, taste a little of the summer, taste a little of the summer, Grandma put it all in jars.