JATC is currently visiting the lovely metropolis of Houston, MO; population 2015. One motel, two stoplights (one at THE Wal-Mart), and Mcdonalds and Sonic. A couple of churches, of which my uncle is pastor of one. A hospital, and a nursing home. And a funeral home. My mother and I are here for her mother’s funeral (RIP Grandma!).
Before Grandma moved to Washington, she’d come to visit us from Florida. I remember little of those visits, but a visit from Grandma was better than Halloween. AJ and I each got a box of candy. A BIG box of candy. Gotta love Grandma!
While I’m sure at some point I will be sad, I am sustained by some totally rocking memories of Grandma – she lived near us in Washington while I was growing up. She had chickens, and goats, and hundreds of rose bushes. She taught me the names of the roses, their colors, and when they bloomed. My job was to memorize them. We’d walk through the garden and she’d quiz me on the roses. Soon, I knew them all. She knew the names of all her plants and trees. To this day, I insist on knowing the names of the plants around me. She understood my dismay when a formerly pet goat arrived on the dinner table as a chop, but she also pointed out it was perfectly good meat and I shouldn’t be wasteful. I understood her point. Didn’t mean I liked it, but I got it. I also got the dozens of cookies she made at Christmas and some really wonderful fudge!
She had a lovely vegetable garden, and tsk’d over my refusal to eat vegetables. So I got Swanson’s chicken pot pie for dinner instead, and ice cream for breakfast. Gotta love a trip to Grandmas house.
She often helped AJ and I make forts in the woods around her place, and she did her best to keep us out of the gullies, deep valleys on either side of her yard. She gamely went along with the theme of our forts. If we said a fallen log was a pirate ship, she brought out a bandanna to hang as our flag and gave us “pirate names”. At one point, she had a pet chicken, named, I think, Lucille. Lucille functioned as the captain’s parrot on the pirate ship. We’d even go for hikes in the woods with Lucille. You gotta love a trip to Grandma’s house.
Grandma’s house was a studio cabin with high beamed ceilings, a tiny kitchenette, a pullout couch/bed and two sides were windows and deck. I remember it stuffed full of afghans and “knick-knacks” – stuff other people called junk. Today I find inspiration from Grandma’s junk. The walls were nearly completely covered with her paintings. Grandma taught me to paint with oils- I fondly remember my first picture, a poodle. I don’t know what became of it. Some of that “junk” resides with me today, and resonates with my current life. As an adult, I have dogs, sighthounds called whippets. As a child, my favorite of Grandma’s “junk” was a mid-size glazed glass statue of borzois, also sighthounds. The borzoi statue currently resides in my living room. One of Grandma’s oils, my favorite, called Autumn in the Ozarks is in my kitchen. I love it for the bright bold colors. I’ve got other “junk” too, vintage tea pots, and a particular favorite, a tarnished, but unique silver compote or butter dish that AJ and I got to play with every time we went to visit. I can still see it on the sill of the window near the deck of the cabin. Today it lives above my kitchen cabinets as part of the decor. She let us play with her jewelry – costume jewelry to be sure, but bright and shiny. Today I am fascinated by, and make a living from remodeling vintage costume jewelry for modern styles. It’s a contemporary twist on the the “junk” that Grandma loved and found “cool” But the coolest thing was Grandma’s basement. You have to banish thoughts of all basements you’ve ever been in to get this one. First off, dirt floor. with rocks. On a hill. Some parts big enough to stand in, some not. One solitary dingy lightbulb. The “deep freeze” lived in the basement. So when we wanted ice cream, we’d have to take the key, go outside, down the hill, to the basement door, let ourselves in the cold, dank basement, find the string for the light, get the ice cream, turn off the light, relock the door and go back up the hill inside. And then we’d have to put it away, by repeating the process. You gotta really want your ice cream! Gotta love going to Grandma’s house. And her steamer trunk. As a child, I remember the steamer trunk in the basement. Beautiful hand painted compartments and a copy of the Warren Commission report on the assassination of President Kennedy, as printed by a Boston newspaper. Today, the trunk resides in my living room, and about once a year I read the yellowed pages of the report.
Besides the goats and chickens, Grandma always had a dog, and took in stray or “found” cats. She did love her animals. One night when I visited, a rare indoor cat decided it was a good time to have kittens. Under the kitchen counter. While we were not prepared for kittens, we made a nest in a box for mama cat, and helped her with her litter of two. When nursing trouble ensued, we fed warm milk through eye droppers to the kittens. They both lived, and I believe stayed with her for some time.
Grandma’s bathroom wasn’t your normal commode. Grandma’s bathroom was for raising baby chickens. I remember a galvanized tub in the shower with a heat lamp over it and chicks in the tub until it was time to live in the coop and eventually end up as a roast on the table or an egg source for breakfast. Breakfast at Grandmas was almost the same adventure as dessert. We went out to the coop and battled hens to get our eggs. I remember her being distraught one year when AJ and I fed the chickens popcorn. The salt will kill them, she said. It didn’t, but to this day, I know chickens shouldn’t eat salt.
Having written this down, I look at the big picture, and I see where I came from. Grandma’s faith sustained her throughout her life and gave her strength and positive energy in her dealings with all things. From her, I love animals, art, and shiny things. I am practical and stubborn. Grandma once wanted to buy a cart for her goats and learn to drive them in to town to run her errands. As unpractical and strange as that may seem, as an adult, I appreciate the lack of boundaries, the ability to imagine beyond the normal, accepted standard. I can only hope that I have the faith and the confidence to live my life the same way.
