Grandparents... the best memories

My best memories are of my grandma and grandpa. I was talking to my best friend the other day about grandparents. My mother wouldn't agree with this, but she isn't really involved in my niece and nephews life. She was when my Dad was alive, but not really since he passed. Her mom doesn't either. This seems so different from when I was growing up. When I was a kid Grandpa would take us to the store to pick up a case of beer, we'd also pick up a bag of Brach's candies, and we got to make the mix! Another treat would be going to the Dairy Queen. My cousins lived in Dubuque, just over the bridge and my cousin Tracy was close to my age so I always begged for her to come stay when I did. Of course we had our moments! Tracy will tell you the truth, we'd argue, I'd go in the bedroom and lock the door. I'd lay down and fall asleep and when I woke up the door would be open :) and all would be fine.
One of our favorite things to do was to go to happy hour at the marina. Grandma and grandpa would get a beer and we'd get soda. I think there was a bowl of peanuts or something. Looking back I'm not sure what made it so magical, except maybe feeling grown-up sitting at the bar with our grandparents.
Other times grandpa might take us to "the beach". It's funny to think of that little strip of beach now. Comparing it to the beaches here in Florida it seems so small, probably dirty. But, it was quiet. No one was ever there, no sunbathing or swimming on the shores of the Mississippi under the Dubuque/East Dubuque bridge, but we walked and picked up seashells. If we were good we might get to go downtown for a hotdog. Just so you know the population of East Dubuque is less than 2,000 and the "downtown" was about 2 blocks long. The hot dogs were decadent, I am not sure, but I think the name of the bar was Mullgrew's. I could be wrong about that. There was also a pharmacy, and an Okey-Dokey grocery store. It seems so foreign now as little kids we could walk the mile into town by ourselves. I remember when I was about 5 (this was one of my Dad's favorite stories) I asked my Dad if could go to the little corner store to get some gum. He said no. Well, determined as I was I took my little purse outside and put some pretty white decorative rocks from our yard and filled it up. I then walked the couple of blocks to the store and tried to buy gum with the rocks. One of the neighbor kids, older kids who babysat, was there, took pity on me and bought the gum. Man was I in trouble. It took an incredible amount of gum to confess who bought it for me. But the thing is even at 5 it wasn't a big deal to walk to the corner store or go across the street to the park, alone. Now.... wow, times have changed!