Summer mornings of my childhood often began with my brother, sister and I, along with our cousins, piling into the tiny eating area at my grandparents’ cottage, sitting at the long wooden table, and anxiously waiting while our grandfather prepared our breakfast - his specially made toast. These mornings, before the day got underway, were cherished times, as Grandad was ours and ours alone. Once breakfast was over, he usually promptly moved on to his handyman duties: the maintenance, upkeep, and repairs to the cottage, often done, to our displeasure, with the Irish music he loved blaring on his portable radio.
While waiting for Grandad to carefully and methodically prepare our breakfast, we would tussle – no major signs of fighting were allowed on his watch - over the choice of mini-boxed cereals. The Fruit Loops and Frosted Flakes always went first. We would enjoy our pre-toast sugary appetizers while waiting for the main dish to be served.
From my earliest memories to adolescence, we spent most summer weekends at our grandparents’ cottage on Nova Scotia’s Shad Bay. The one-storey bright yellow oceanfront cottage was built by my grandparents when my mother was a teenager back in the 50s. Even though it was less than a half an hour’s drive from our home, it was a completely different world of total freedom, with no schedules, no chores, and no responsibilities.
The best times were when our cousins, John and Gina, joined my sister, brother, and me at “The Bay”. There were 10 years between the boys: John, the oldest, and Jamil, the youngest. Between the boys were the three granddaughters – Gina, me, and my sister, Sonia. We spent our days swimming in the freezing-cold Atlantic and building sandcastles on the beach, taking a break only for the necessities: to eat and to relieve ourselves in the tiny bathroom. When the septic system backed up due to age and overuse, my grandfather, taking preventative measures, encouraged us to use the long-neglected small, green outhouse. The outhouse was the same age as the cottage but had fallen into disrepair over the years. My grandfather spruced it up with some paint, and my grandmother added her feminine touch, decorating it with fake flowers, pretty pictures, and air freshener. In spite of their valiant efforts, we were still not enthused about spending even one minute in that smelly rectangular box.
We made crudely built tree forts in the woods with whatever pieces of wood and scraps we could scavenge from the land and our grandfather’s shed. Although not built to last the harsh weather of the Atlantic coast and invasion and destruction from the area’s nasty kids, the forts were a getaway from the adults, giving us a place to hang out in the woods, feeling adventurous and free. We enjoyed spirited and unevenly matched outdoor games of catch with a football or baseball and glove where the bigger, stronger kids always prevailed. We also enjoyed a game with paddles, a pole, and a tennis ball attached to a rope that spun around a coil when hit, called Zimm Zamm. We rode our bikes up and down uneven and pothole-filled country roads, occasionally falling into ditches or onto sharp, unforgiving gravel. We played hide and seek, sometimes at dusk or, if we were feeling really brave, in the dark of the surrounding woods. On rainy days we played cards indoors, mainly Uno, Crazy Eights and Go Fish, and eventually games of Monopoly and Yahtzee, sometimes lasting days, where the rules would change, depending on who was keeping score.
At night we crammed into a tiny storage room to sleep on the floor on colourful, thin one-inch beach mats. When we could no longer fit our growing bodies into that impossibly small room, we moved into our spacious new accommodations – a six-person tent. Eventually, after countless nights of little sleep and difficult-to-repair leaks in the canvas, we moved on to the relative luxury and comfort of a pop-up trailer, a surprise from our grandparents. The trailer was parked steps away from the cottage, allowing the adults to keep an eye and ear on what we were doing, including the games we played, such as Spin the Bottle and Truth or Dare, as well as stories of adolescent angst shared by our cousins.
Most mornings we would wake up famished and ready to fuel up for the day. Often we would enter the kitchen to find Grandad working at the counter, head down, saying little, as he toasted white bread, keeping a close eye that it was done just enough: slightly toasted to a light brown color – never burnt - crispy on the outside, soft on the inside. Once the toast popped out of the shiny silver toaster with the dangerously hot side panels, he would quickly spread a generous amount of butter on the toast, ensuring it instantly melted into the bread. Then with military precision, he would cut the toast in half, on a diagonal, carefully placing the triangular pieces on a plate, buttered sides together, ensuring full melting. If we were really lucky, he would also fry up small, thin slices of bologna to add to the toast – a rare treat for my brother, sister and me due to our father’s disdain of the smell and taste of this mysterious meat.
We waited while this process was repeated several times, until the pieces of toast were precariously piled in two ever-heightening towers, each one four or five triangles high. The plate was then put on the table, and once Grandad’s fingers released it, we dove in. The top pieces were the hottest and the best, so they disappeared in a flash. The other slices were scavenged up by the slower, usually younger kids, namely my brother and sister.
The toast, smothered in perfectly melted butter, hit our lips and was gone in a few bites. Once we cleared the plate, the rich buttery taste, still lingering on our now greasy lips, left us begging for more. Eagerly, we waited for the next tower of toast to be constructed and served.
Although my breakfast choices have changed, whenever I smell hot, buttered toast I am back at the cottage kitchen table with my sister, brother, and cousins, anxiously and excitedly waiting for the taste of Grandad’s lightly toasted, freshly buttered toast.
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