After work, we had dinner and after the meal, we sat on the porch. Grandma used to sit on the step by the front door with us kids, and I sat on her right side, leaning against the door frame. I wasn't going to school yet. In that spot, I felt safe from the whole world. It was the most secure place for me and a moment of complete certainty in my childhood life. Everything unpleasant that weighed on me was completely powerless at that moment.
Years later, I remember one of Grandma's stories. She had still experienced her grandfather, who would be visited by farmer Nový. Times were tense, Napoleon was on the loose. The two old men engaged in lively debate about the French advance on Moscow through Bohemia. Grandfather concluded his opinion on Napoleon's actions in the whole world with this sentence: “You know, Johann, when I die and come to heaven, if I see that Bonaparte there – I won't hesitate at all that I'm in heaven – but I will smack him with a stick!”
(P. Benedikt Holota OFM /* 1922/, What My Home Village Gave Me, Memories)
