Harold Stockburger

Saturday At My Grandparents


When I was a child, Saturdays in many ways were the best day of the week. Not only was there no school, we were able to watch real cartoons. By real cartoons, I am talking about Bugs Bunny, Road Runner, Donald Duck, Elmer Fudd, and anyway you get the point. These cartoons were entertaining, and many times had life lessons in them as well. Cartoons parents could let children watch without worrying about the content. However, the best parts of Saturdays were when we would go to my grandparent’s house in the country.


Many a Saturday after we finished our morning cartoons we would head to my grandparents in time for lunch. Saturday lunches were usually simple, most of the time it was a ham or cheese sandwich with a big fresh tomato sliced on it. In the days before MTV or even country music videos there were Southern Gospel videos, and at lunchtime on Saturday there was no better place to see them than Mull’s Singing Convention. Now I will never forget the Rev. J. Bazzel and “Lady” Mull. Together they would talk with local dignitaries and play videos of many of the biggest names in Southern Gospel at the time. If you lived anywhere in Northwest Georgia or East Tennessee, you had to see the Mull’s Singing Convention.


However, the main event was my brother and I, watching our grandfather, watching Harry Thornton’s Live Wrestling Show. For those not from the area, Harry Thornton was a local television personality and wrestling promoter from the 1950’s to the early 1980’s. On Saturdays, the local CBS affiliate would carry what to a child seemed funny, but to my grandfather seemed deadly serious. Even now, I can still see him jumping up out of his recliner, waving his fist in the air, yelling, “Kill him”, as one wrestler would have the other one on the mat. Nothing else could get my grandfather so riled up as his Saturday afternoon wrestling matches.


More often than not, the late afternoons were outside, exploring the countryside, or fishing in my grandfather’s pond. Sometimes he would hitch up the wagon to the tractor and give us rides all over the place. On other occasions, we would hop in his truck and run to the corner store to get some penny candy to enjoy. The times I remember most, were when we would just walk and talk with my grandfather about anything we wanted to talk about, even wrestling. Never one time do I remember him seeming bored or hurried. There was always gentleness, kindness and genuine concern for whatever was going on in our lives.


Usually when we returned to the house my mom and grandmother would have supper fixed, and it was always something to behold. The best fried chicken you have ever tasted and my grandmother could fry potatoes (spuds) like nobody I have ever known. Cornbread, pinto beans, and numerous other country dishes all served on that old 1950’s style table, for all to enjoy. Just the thought makes me hungry even today.


After dinner, it was time to sit down and watch some more Saturday television. The evening started with the Lawrence Welk show, with his big band and the bubbles in the background. Of course, no Saturday in the country was complete without a good dose of country music. Some I remember well, others not so. There was The Porter Wagoner Show, The Wilburn Brothers, and everybody’s favorite, Hee-Haw. Even now, I still remember seeing some who became huge stars, while sitting on my grandparents couch, watching that old black and white television.


The old country songs have a way of taking me back to that special time. Sometimes when a song comes across the radio, I can close my eyes, and smell the chicken frying. After all this time I can still hear my grandfather’s words as he would yell at some wrestler on TV or show me a corn sprout poking out of the ground, or even let me touch a newborn calf for the first time. Each of us has that special memory they like to cling to, but mine will always be Saturdays at my grandparents.