The great year of the grandchildren
This year's big year in the countryside, except for the ban on firecrackers, is no different from previous years. On the first day of the first year, after eating dumplings early, they greeted each other, greetings, and blessings. My mother was of high rank and older age, and wave after wave of new year's greetings in the morning could not go out. When the afternoon subsided, I went out for a walk, in the name of New Year's Greetings.
When you arrive at the home of the eldest brother of the clan, the first thing that comes into sight of the old adobe house is covered with a plastic greenhouse, which is high and roofy, about four meters wide, with the ear house in the west and the side room in the east. At a glance, you can see that this is for heating, which is really a pioneering work! Never heard of it, much less.
Lift the plastic curtain, and the shed is warm and melting. I looked at this "monster" curiously, and faced with the old couple making dumplings at the door of the ear house. Well, it's warmer outside the door than inside. At the door of the ear house, there is a self-prepared pressure well, which is good, and the motor is installed.
The eldest brother quickly greeted me and invited me to the main house. In front of the main entrance of the house, there is a wooden square table with tributes on it, and behind the tribute is a photo of the eldest brother's mother and the third brother of the martyr. The house was still dark, low and dark, filled with the smell of a wood-burning stove. Old earthen kang, adobe walls, wooden doors and windows... The only heating facility in the house was the honeycomb stove, which he couldn't buy now, and the gas pipe passed through his adobe wall, and he didn't want to use it, and the water pipe was just outside the courtyard, and he didn't want to use it. The eldest brother asked me to do the circle chair next to the square table, and I knew that it was the "right position", usually the big brother's seat. He sat on a stool in front of the stove. There were only two broken wooden stools in the room, and anyone else could only make kang on the edge.
We sat opposite each other, parents short.
During the conversation, the eldest brother's grandson Ah Tao came home. He greeted him politely, then, and sat down along the kang mountain. Ah Tao was a junior at Liaocheng University, polite, clean, fair-faced, tall, much like his martyr Third Master. After this year, Ah Tao was twenty-one years old.
Ah Tao is a bitter child. When he was still in elementary school, his parents divorced. At this time, Ah Tao lived with his grandparents. After his father remarried, Ah Tao was unable to return to his parents. Time flies, and the child is about to go to high school. The high school I attended is more than twenty miles away from home, and I have to live in the school for a long time. The cost of high school children, everyone knows, study, life, is a big expense. However, Grandpa has an income of just a few acres of land, the first two years also went out to work to earn a few small money, now it is not OK, the ancient rare year, emphysema, asthma, walking are difficult, as the patriarch, this year's Spring Festival at the beginning of the second ancestor worship he has not been able to participate. Ah Tao's grandmother has sequelae of cerebral thrombosis, and she cannot do without taking medicine, crying when she cries, and laughing when she wants to.
Two sick elderly people, relying on the meager income of a few acres of land to support this family of three, but also for the children to go to school, how easy to talk about! Ah Tao is a sensible child, and he knows his family situation well. In high school, students buy vegetables and food, and their lives are rich. He can only buy things like green onion cakes, because green onion cakes save money for vegetables. Cut back on food and clothing, and follow suit. The sky is not bad, and the child was successfully admitted to liaoda construction engineering college.
Fifteen years have passed since then.
Ah Tao lives in an east house. This house is also an adobe house, wooden doors and windows, with an area of about twelve or thirteen square meters. A broken window, a cupboard facing the door, what it looked like inside, I didn't bother to look closely. His father's newly flipped rural compound, spacious and beautiful, he doesn't go to live, he doesn't want to live, he can't live, stepmother, two younger brothers, such a family, you know.
I talked to Ah Tao about life, about the future, about life, about current affairs, about literature, about hobbies... It's a speculative talk.
"Is it better to get a job first or to go to graduate school first?" Ah Tao was obviously listening to my advice. I didn't think twice: "First get employed and then go to graduate school." This home is in front of you. Don't you know? Your grandparents are getting older, there are more and more problems, and the burden on your father's family is not small, and the road ahead is only your own." He nodded in approval.
Such family conditions, in the past few years, were also too low insurance, and later screened down, because the eldest brother has a son. Such a house was also ready to be flipped, but it did not have the conditions and missed the opportunity. Talking about the house, I asked the eldest brother, "Is there still such a house in our village?" He said, "No," feeling a little frustrated. When it comes to the house, Ah Tao is quite clever, he said that there are still policies, you can apply for state support, he is preparing materials. I support it.
A family of three, a black house, an earthen terrace, spent the Spring Festival in a pristine environment. The streets are full of cars, neighbors, and high houses, all of which have nothing to do with our patriarch and Ah Tao.
