What is so cool about all that is the memories those events generated! People ask me what I do for a living and I answer, create smiles and great memories!

My grandfather taught me how to fix flats on my bikes, he was grumpy about fixing flats all the time it seemed. That turned into me fixing flats for the other kids, 50 cents here, piece of pie there, kiss from a crush! Hahahaa. My other grandfather taught me chords on the guitar, the same guitar I have now all these years later.

Our only big festival was Thanksgiving, lasted until a year before we lost Grandma. Now we all have our own little traditions. But the memories of the pie, watermelon in the summer, and riding bikes under the moonlight in Southern California summers live on.

Thats a great memory you shared, brings back some of my own, voices from the past that I miss. Thanks for sharing Frank.

No, never did like wine much, watched me dad make some back in 68, turned into some really bad tasting grape juice. Lol.

Time to get this day a Rockin!!

Motto for today: I don't wanna work! Just wanna bang on de drum all day!

Laters Gators.

Super David Scott.

Hi there, Frank,

Thank you for sharing this 10 star post. What an amazing childhood and grandpa you had. I only wish I could have met all my grandparents, At least I remember one. She was so much fun.

The visuals are absolutely textbook stunning. Grandparents are absolutely the best. Hope you make this into a book. And yes, I love wine. However, I mostly sip during the holidays.

Rachele
Rock on!

Oh, Frank!
What a wonderful story of family life.

I especially love the part where you ate the grapes on the back of the pickup.
When my Grandmother bought crates of tomatoes in the market, I would sit in the back of the van with them and eat to my heart's delight.

It was so much fun.

It is good that your family has kept this tradition going.
Something to cherish in these hurried times.

Thank you so much for sharing.
Cassi

Another great family tradition story, Frank. Where was this? Your rides in the back of the pick-up truck with the grapes rang a bell. I used to have rides in the back of the wheat truck, on top of the wheat. I'll have to pull together a few of these family stories one of these days. Thanks for the memories.

What a wonderful story. It triggered a memory for me. Once, while driving around Australia, we met a man next to a truck on a dirt road swearing his head off in Italian. Neither my husband Leo spoke Italian, but we both had enough Spanish to get the gist.

It transpired that his truck had broken down. I cant remember what part he needed now this is forty years on, but I do remember we were carrying one. Leo fixed the part and the Guiseppe invited us home for dinner, (we were on first name terms by then)

As we drove through his estate we realized that he was a grape farmer. It later transpired that he sold the majority of his grapes but he had a small winery.

Anyway it also transpired that the cost of hiring manual labour was higher that particular year was higher than the price he could recoup at market. The grapes were rotting on the vine.

We offered to pick the grapes for a week. He readily agreed and we set to work harvesting the most expensive grapes. The rest became natural organic fertiliser.

During that week Mamma taught me to make home made pasta and many simple rustic but fantastic tasting sauces. We worked very hard and drank hard as well.

At the end of the time we refused to take payment, insisting we hadn't negotiated a salary as we didn't want one. The arguments were fierce but in the end we negotiated a solution where we both won.

He gave us two 80 litre casks of vintage port. There was a proviso we were only to share it with people we loved whilst traveling around Australia.

It took us the next ten months to give that away, although we kept some back for our last night.

The memories from that wonderful week are still with me. Thank you for the reminder Franco

Wow Frank.
You brought me back to my childhood.
Many times I helped with 🍇 🍇 🍇 harvesting and crushing.
My father has been making wine since I can remember. Of course, where wine is the material for brandy.
He always made red wine.

This might be the first year they don't make it, I hope I'm wrong.

Thanks for the post, brought back a lot of good memories.

Greetings,
Slavka 👋🍇🍇🍇🍷😋👋

Hi Frank! I love reading your Italian tales. Sounds like some amazing memories. I can remember my dad and his friends making wine for a while when I was a child. It seemed popular back then. But I also lived in a mainly Italian area for years and was very familiar with this practice! The local grocery still carries huge flats of grapes for this purpose.

In fact, it’s almost time for all the southern Italians to make passata in their cauldrons in their garages. That’s another sight to behold.

Glad you had such great experiences and thanks for the vivid share!

Rock On!
Susan 🎸🤘😎

What a wonderful gathering of memories! Thanks for sharing. Sounds like a totally great time.