It's a kind of magic

Small red apples always do the trick. It's not their sweetness nor their cuteness. It's the memory. Nostalgia. Call it whatever you like. Small red apples taste sweet. They make me think of my grandpa..

Just across the road. That's where he lived. A few steps away, in his small, white painted house. There was a narrow hallway and a stairways where old coins were nailed down on the banisters. I loved to touch those coins. They had little holes in the middle and grandpa had nailed them down to keep them safe. The house always smelled old. It smelled of old people, I guess..

A door led to his living area. His house was small, but it was comfortable and there was plenty of room for him. Grandma had passed away so many years before, that I don't even recall her.
A smaller door had to be opened to go down the stairs to the basement. And that's where he kept those sweet red apples.. He would give us one, but not before he had rubbed it against his shirt to clean it. A stupid apple, no more than that, but after all of those years, I can still remember their taste.

He would take us outside, in to his backyard, where he grew his own veggies. He loved to be out there. We would pick sour sorrel straight from the yard. Sometimes even rhubarb to munch on. We never found it too sour. Nowadays, just thinking of raw rhubarb gives me the shivers. We grow our own rhubarb now and we have a patch of sorrel. I think that would make him proud. Even the gooseberries are similar to his. But they will never taste the same. Because grandpa is no longer there to hand them out with the love he had to share..