When I was 3 and a half, my grandmother moved here from Houston, Texas. I don't remember much about it except the moving van, and our family getting lots of her extra furniture. She moved into the Carol Woods Retirement Community, which is 10 minutes away from us.

In most retirement communities, there aren't a lot of kids around. Those visiting from far away are a lot of times unable to see their grandparents very frequently.

We've been able to go there more often. In fact, Carol Woods has become a big part of my life.

Not long after she moved here, my father, younger brother Shafe and I decided to join her for breakfast at the big dining hall buffet on Saturday. We ended up doing this every Saturday for years.

I'll always remember the large sitting area with a huge fireplace where we could sit and play the piano, the concert hall where we went to performances, and the glass display case outside the library with a variety of antique items that changed every few weeks. I will also remember the outside area with the beautiful pond, ducks, trees, croquet court and walkways, and how we would climb on the rocks, chase Huey the duck, and explore the pathways.

But more than anything else, I will remember the interesting people we got to know there, starting in our earliest visits.

One of the first people we got to know was a lady named Myra Ledyard, who became one of my grandmother's best friends. We were surprised to find out that this small, quiet woman had been the police commissioner for the small town of Southern Shores, on the Outer Banks.

One time, when I mentioned I had just gotten back from a school trip to Joyce Kilmer National Forest, she immediately began reciting Joyce Kilmer's poem "Tree" from memory. She told us her mother had been Joyce Kilmer's classmate! At Christmastime, we always think of Mrs. Ledyard when we see the stocking that she made for Shafe hanging over the fireplace.

Before my grandmother had even moved into Carol Woods, we met a very nice lady named Libby Holder, who was to become another one of her good friends. My mother was measuring my grandmother's apartment, and Shafe, about 10 months old at the time, had spread Cheerios all over the empty room. When Mrs. Holder dropped in to say hello, my mother joked to her, "We'll try to get them picked up before their grandmother moves in." She replied, "No, I think you should just leave them there for her to find when she gets here!"

Mrs. Holder always had time for us. She told us many interesting stories, including the story of when she was a young bride, and her husband died saving a drowning boy when she was pregnant with her only child. Every Christmas, she would bring us her delicious homemade gingerbread men cakes, which she decorated with raisins and other dried fruit. When she was 90 years old, she was still driving to Greensboro by herself on I-40.

One day in the dining hall, my brother and I met Mr. Huyler, a friendly man who was about to turn 99. We had never known anyone that old. We got to know him and started anticipating his 100th birthday. It was exciting when the day finally came. He was born the same year the ice cream cone was invented at the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis!

Though these three people are no longer with us, they have brought us many happy memories that I hope to look back on when I'm their age.

I wish a lot of things could be the way they used to be, but things change. We don't eat breakfast in the big dining hall any more. My life is busier. My grandmother is 91 and doesn't get around as easily as she used to. We've lost touch with many people we've known. But we still go by Carol Woods as often as we can. I feel lucky to have known this world.