Growing up I always enjoyed going to my grandmothers house. My dad had a rule in our house every other weekend we would visit his mom my grandma. I never liked the trip to get there, my grandma lived in Eldon Missouri a small town 30 miles from Jefferson City. It was always relaxing there,  I didn't have the stress,pressures and noise of a big town. Things where simpler there, my grandmother would always had a very large garden and me and my brother would always work an she would pay us for a good days work. Which I always looked forward to, my grandma always would had strange pets at one time she had a pet duck who lived in the pond down the street and he would come up to her house to get fed.  My grandmother always had a lot of tough love she always said what was on her mind and most of the time she would come off as mean. She used to refer to me as fat ass when I was younger and when I was a teenager I would walk down to the pond and smoke and no matter how much gum I would chew  she could always tell. Sometimes as soon as I would come in the house she would grab me by my ear and twist and lower me down to her shorter stature level and hold me there till I breathed and she would  smell my breath, then I would get a lecture how I was going to need an oxygen tank one day and everyone she knew who had died from smoking. I always had a lot of respect although she was seemed mean she did because she cared and I've never met anyone with work ethic as good as hers.