When it was time to leave, Grandma went along to enroll me in school. We walked to the corner of her block, then headed downhill on an icy sidewalk, following the same route my mother had taken when she was my age. All too soon the building loomed—three terrifying stories of stone, with a fenced playground facing the street. I watched children arriving ahead of us. They were cutting around the end of a wrought-iron fence and scooting down a snow bank onto the playground.
Suddenly I didn’t want to continue on the shoveled walk that bisected the fence and led to the wide front doors. Everyone on the playground would see me and know I was a stranger.
“Please, Grandma, let’s go this way.” I tugged her toward the shortcut. “All the other kids are doing it.”
She didn’t hesitate. “Come on then,” she said, easing around the end of the fence.
We traipsed to the snow bank and together plowed down it full force. Grandma slid on her backside, then sprung to her feet at the bottom, never missing a step. Clutching the strap of her handbag, she kept pace with me as though we were both ten years old. My bare legs were cold and wet; my Buster Browns filled with snow.
Our descent probably lasted just seconds, but those seconds were enough to install me in my new world. I walked proudly across the playground with Grandma and up the steps into the school.
Thanks to Grandma’s courage and sense of adventure, I belonged.
Now, standing in my kitchen, I reconsidered my grandson’s request. I called out the window, “Brian, let’s play on that pogo stick!”
Grandmas aren’t so breakable after all.
Ann Kirk Shorey
Grandma’s River
Happiness consists in being perfectly satisfied with what we have got and with what we haven’t got. It is not how much we have, but how much we enjoy, that makes happiness.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Throughout my youth I treasured the hot summer days spent with my grandma. Every summer she transformed her front yard into a summer utopia. She accomplished this by utilizing only what she had on hand: her eroded, sunken front yard, cardboard boxes, old lawn chairs, blankets and a water hose.
Grandma, despite her poverty—or maybe because of it—knew what the real blessing of summer was . . . water.
Before lounging in the old, white wooden lawn chairs, Grandma and I would begin the yard transformation. First came the draping of the old, hard lawn chairs with soft, colorful blankets. Then we hauled out our daily supplies of favorite items—ice-cold Orange Nesbit pop; thick, salted slices of watermelon; chilled, hard green apples and frozen candy bars. The treats varied daily, depending on how much of Grandma’s Social Security check was left. The two constants, however, were Grandma’s beloved Reader’s Digest and her large blue washcloth dunked in a pan of cold water filled with ice cubes.
Once the transformation was complete, we each took our places under the weeping willow tree with everything we needed close at hand in cardboard boxes. The day included hours of visiting, laughing, eating and pans of icy water. Later in the day, Grandma read stories to me from her Reader’s Digest. I loved those stories and was mesmerized listening to her warm colorful voice as she read.
As the temperature increased, Grandma would douse herself with a wet cloth, press it up against her forehead and exclaim, “Oh, honey, this feels so good! You know, Melodie, nothing cools you off like a cold compress, unless you go to the river.”
When the heat lingered on and became more intense, Grandma would say, “If it doesn’t cool down soon, we will have to go to the river.”
My heart started to race at the mention of the river. I had waited all day to hear those words. Yesterday the river was so wonderful; to return would be grand.
It was always midday when Grandma made the big decision to go. Finally, she would give in and say, “Honey, let’s go to the river. I can’t stand this heat anymore.”
I would leap from my chair and squeal with excitement, “Grandma! Grandma! Can we make the river deep today?”
Walking around to the side of her house in her worn-out rubber thongs, making a flapping sound as she went, Grandma answered me loudly, “Let’s see how the water pressure is, honey. Maybe we can have a waterfall too!”
I ran alongside my grandmother as she pulled and tugged her long, tangled hose to the front yard. She looked at me lovingly and said, “You first, honey. Go get in your chair. Hurry now, get your shoes off, I’ll go turn on the water.”
Each time I’d jump into my chair and fumble at my shoelaces to beat the water. I always succumbed to pulling too hard on my tennis shoes until they surrendered and came off. I anxiously pulled on the toe of my white socks, stretching the cotton material beyond size. Finally, victory . . . I saw bare feet!
I could hear the surge of water in the pipes making its way to the faucet; soon it would be flowing in the hose. Oh, the joy of anticipation! My excitement grew as my naked toes waited in the green grass for the arrival of water.
Grandma always held the hose high, water spewing and splashing about. Standing above me, she laughed and sprayed my tiny feet. The cold water was exhilarating. I giggled and bounced in my chair with delight as the water touched my skin. Laughing and looking up at my grandma, I would shout, “Grandma, I love you and your river so much!”
My grandma’s expression softened, as if realizing the depth of joy she was giving me.
After a few minutes I announced, “Okay, Grandma, it’s your turn now. Sit down!”
Then, taking the thick green hose in hand, I would spray Grandma’s large swollen feet and legs. Grandma laughed loudly and rubbed her chubby feet together in the cold surging water. After awhile she sighed with relief, exclaiming, “Melodie, what a difference this water makes. I can finally breathe, honey. Thank the good Lord for water!”
As the water rolled down Grandma’s legs, I chimed in too, mimicking her tone perfectly. “Thank the good Lord for water!”
Grandma would let the water run until the sunken side of her lawn was completely flooded. Her concrete sidewalk held the water in place until it evaporated later.
After the lawn was flooded, we sat there dangling our feet in about three inches of water, enjoying our created surroundings of old lawn chairs draped with blankets and our trusted cardboard boxes holding all our daily treasures.
It never even occurred to me how ridiculous we might have looked to some. The only picture I recall in my head when remembering those glorious summer days spent at Grandma’s are images of blissfulness and joy.
Yes, it was there in my grandma’s run-down, flooded yard that I had my first taste of summer bliss. Many, many years have passed since, but I still long for those hot summer days shared with her. Some children had swimming pools; others had trips to lakes or the ocean; thankfully, I had “Grandma’s River.”
Melodie Lynn Tilander
Journey Home
As she glared at the Houston rush hour traffic, Grandma clutched her steering wheel as tightly as I gripped the map in my hand. That morning we had left Grandma’s little cabin in the Ozark Mountains to move her in with my family in southeast Texas. I was her designated companion on the trip.
“Look at that sky,” said Grandma. “Storm’s coming.”
I peered up at the sky. It was black, very black. Torrents of rain, hail and high winds hid in dark clouds like these. In my thirteen years of life I had watched enough newscasts to know that in the worst storms, Houston’s underpasses flood up to six feet deep in minutes, road signs blow down onto the expressway and hail the size of golf balls dents cars.
Afraid, I said, “Grandma, we gotta get off this highway.” I looked for an exit. Grandma was as worried as I was about the storm. From the inside lane of four lanes of traffic, Grandma spied an exit sign. With barely a glance over her left shoulder, she shot across three lanes of traffic. Cars honked. A few swerved. I closed my eyes until I could feel the car enter the exit ramp.
“Flip on the overhead light,” commanded Grandma as
we slowed for a red light. “Find us a way home.”
We started a new journey down two-lane roads. Every time we came to a four-way stop Grandma looked at me. Each time I studied the map silently. When I figured where we were and where we were going, I pointed the way. Grandma did not question. The crumpled map became damp in my clutches as hour after hour we drove through winding back roads and small towns. The houses we passed in the middle of the night were dark. The Texas landscape was silent. It seemed as if we were the only people in the world who were awake.
Finally, it began to rain. Together, we strained against our seatbelts to see the road ahead. I did not need the map anymore. We were on the last stretch of road before the turnoff to our home. My eyes shut briefly every few minutes as I dreamed of my soft, warm bed. During one of my dozes Grandma switched to the outside lane. I was too groggy to comprehend that there was no outside lane on that twolane road. Moments after the “lane change” the rain fell faster. Tiny rocks dinged the windshield.
Mysteriously, the pavement suddenly became bumpy and uneven. I glanced out my window. We were rushing past tall weeds and bushes just inches from the window.
“Grandma,” I yelled. “You’re driving on the shoulder!”
“No, I’m not,” she snapped.
A few moments later the shoulder of the road ended. A bridge abutment loomed in front of us.
“Get back on the road,” I hollered.
Grandma swerved into the correct lane as the road funneled under a bridge.
We drove in silence, continuing to stare into the darkness, looking for our turnoff.
A few miles later I saw the exit to the road where we lived. Grandma slowed the car and turned off the lonely stretch of highway.
“There’s our driveway,” I announced wearily. She shifted into low gear, turned and missed the entrance completely. The car nosed into the ditch, the tires slowly sinking into the rain-saturated earth.
Grandma unfastened her seat belt. “Let’s go,” she said wearily. “We’re home.”
We staggered out of the car and up out of the ditch.
Sliding in the mud, I tried to keep up with Grandma. The porch light was on. A faint glow came through the window from the living room lamps. Grandma trudged slowly in front of me, exhausted from long hours of night driving, narrowly avoiding a bridge collision and parking in a ditch at the end of her destination. Still, we beat the storm. We made it home.
I know now what I did not know as a thirteen-year-old girl that dark rainy night. Grandma had more to be afraid of than the black clouds that gathered against the Houston sky. At the age of seventy she left, leaving the Ozark mountain cabin that held countless memories of her late husband. She was on her way to a small town on the Gulf of Mexico. There she would start a new life with her daughter, son-in-law and six children—a new life at the age of seventy, when she should have been settling into the routine of her twilight years. Grandma, my grandma, took on a whole new challenge.
Today, as a middle-aged woman I can only say that I hope to grow old like her. I want to face each new bend in the road as it comes, just as she did on that rainy night so long ago. With courage and a sense of adventure, I want to face the journey home.
Renee Hixson
Getting directions to Grandma’s in the computer age.
Reprinted by permission of Martin Barcella. ©2001.
Travels with Grandma
Not a sentence or word is independent of the circumstances under which it is uttered.
Alfred Lord Whitehead
My daughters, Linda and Leslie, never called my mother anything but Honie. Mother announced early on that she was much too young to be a grandmother, and Honie was the closest derivative of her name Helen, so Honie she was to all of us.
Honie was an inveterate traveler, and fortunately for us, she derived great pleasure from taking us on her journeys. Although Linda was fifteen and Leslie was twelve and I was thirty-five, Honie always referred to the three of us as “her girls” and treated us as if we were all the same age.
And on her trips, since she was well read and very knowledgeable about everywhere her travels took us, we all acted childlike. No matter what the country, every morning Honie would determine our destination and our destiny for the day, and we would follow like dutiful little ducklings wherever she led. For one so small (she was barely five feet tall) she was a born leader and not to be deterred in whatever she determined to achieve.
Her notion of speaking a foreign language was to speak English very slowly, very loudly and act out the words as one might in the game of charades. We would stand aside as she went through her convolutions, and although we might risk a whispered “Is it bigger than a breadbox?” we generally shut up and let her elicit whatever answers she could with her dramatic efforts.
Our first Sunday in Lisbon, she approached a Portuguese gentleman on the street, pulled on his sleeve, pointed to the heavens, then folded her hands in supplication and said, “God—pray, God—pray?” The gentleman looked at her quizzically, and then as the light dawned, responded, “You want a church, lady?”
Honie beamed in pleasure as he pointed out the nearest church and went on his way. She had already mastered Portuguese. We rolled our eyes in despair and followed her into the church, not sure whether to pray for indulgence or beg for forgiveness.
In our week’s stay at the Avenida Palace, there was scarcely a morning that she did not have a request for the front desk, and to their credit, they were always tolerant and usually accommodating.
One morning as we rode down to the lobby in the big iron elevator, Honie was doing her usual “tch, tch,” as she decried the fact that European hotels “never, ever, ever supplied washcloths” and announced that she would just stop by the front desk to request three for the next morning. Approaching the desk clerk, she said slowly and distinctly, “Excuse me, but we . . . don’t have . . . any . . . ,” and folding her hand into a ball, she vigorously scrubbed her cheek.
“Soap?” he asked.
She shook her head in irritation. “No, no, washcloths.”
“Ah,” he nodded knowingly. “I will see to it, señora.”
Mission accomplished, we were off to Nazare for a day of exploring. The next morning she informed us once again that she needed to stop at the front desk.
Timorously we followed and waited while she informed the clerk that we were out of Kleenex in our bathroom. This request included placing her hand over her nose, saying “achoo” several times and wiping her nose. Now it was the clerk’s turn to roll his eyes, but he acknowledged her request and we were on our way.
The next morning we were halfway across the lobby and almost out the door when Honie stopped us. “Just a minute, girls. I need to tell the desk clerk that we’re out of toilet paper.”
The picture of how she might dramatize that request was more than any of us could face. We were out the door in a flash, leaving Honie to face the clerk on her own. There is a limit to what even the most dutiful ducklings will endure.
Phyllis W. Zeno
Going Places
Fun gives you a forcible hug, and shakes laughter out of you, whether you will it or no.
David Garrick
I’ve been to an N’Sync concert. I’ve snacked at Jekyll and Hyde, the popular theme restaurant. When Britney Spears was involved with a restaurant in Manhattan, I dined there. Am I a teenybopper? Ha! Far from it. I’ve visited playgrounds, amusement parks and Chuck E. Cheese’s. Am I a toddler? Of course not. I’ve been at the huge kaleidoscope in the Catskill Mountains of upstate New York and visited Liberty Science Center where patrons are encouraged to touch and test the museum exhibits. Okay, now you’ve probably guessed it. I’m a grandmother.
You’ll find there are many perks to being a grandparent . . . once you recover from that initial shock. And I say shock, because no matter how lovingly anticipated, the birth of a first grandchild is a milestone moment. Many of us become grandparents when we’re not quite ready. It
seems like only yesterday we were caring for our own babies, and now one of them has a child.
But soon we learn that grandchildren look upon the world with new eyes and that it’s quite possible to share that gift. They’re great company; they inspire us to go on quests without traveling to exotic lands and foreign shores. I’ve taken a couple of young ones on an elephant safari . . . on the Jersey Shore. Thanks to my pitiful sense of direction, we wandered about before finding our quarry. And there we were, looking at Lucy, the Margate elephant, a historical structure, once a publicist’s ploy to urge folks to buy property, then a tourist camp and restaurant, and now a fascinating building, complete with howdah atop. We climbed into one huge right leg, went to the upper story, looked out Lucy’s eye at the ocean and then climbed up to the howdah.
On a recent off-season visit to the giant kaleidoscope, we lay on the floor and looked up as the world changed before our eyes. Would I do that if I didn’t have a kid next to me? I’d love to say I would, but I doubt it.
Grandchildren allow us to enjoy the things that either weren’t around when we were kids or things we never got to see. Sure, I did some of this stuff with my own kids, but life was so busy then. Now I can enjoy all these little pleasures.
Merry-go-rounds—I’ve always loved them. I enjoyed riding the horses that didn’t move when I was a young child and riding the horses that went up and down when I was a teenager. Now I pretend I’m going just to take a toddler for a ride, but it’s a sham. I love every minute of it.
I’ve ridden merry-go-rounds at amusement areas and malls and on the historical flying horses carousel on Martha’s Vineyard.
I’ve visited a simulated rainforest where butterflies flitted about, landing on our shoulders and backs. I’ve been to a small local museum where huge, mechanized dinosaurs roared and shuddered. I’ve ridden the rails on the Hello Dolly train in the Pennsylvania Dutch country and clambered aboard the swan boats in Boston for an old-fashioned ride.