Ode to Granny, Talents of a Child

Growing up I was lucky enough to get to spend the summer in Oregon with my Granny & Grandpa.  It started out as a family vacation and then my Mom and Dad would go home and we (me and my sisters) got to stay for the rest of the summer.

My Granny was a women of many, many talents.  Married to my Grandpa for over 75 years, they met in a shoe factory in Missouri.  Soon after that she became a nurse.  I have heard so many stories from the nursing days but one of the most memorable ones was when she was the attending nurse for Sammy Davis Jr. when he lost his eye in a car accident on the way to Las Vegas to do a show.  As she told it, he was quite charming and gentle natured, she didn’t think a thing about the color of his skin, except to tell him that her daughter turns as dark as him in the summertime. 

She loved animals and children, and they all, big or small loved her.  There was just a way about her.  Everybody wanted to hang out at her house.  Even the neighborhood dogs wanted to move in to Granny’s house, one actually did, Benji, as she re-named him because he was like the dog from the movie Benji.  No matter how many times she would take him home he just kept coming back. 

I stood stiff as a board and watched as she talked to a wild deer “come on honey here’s a cracker for you” and the deer walked right up and took it out of her hand.  She also loved to fish and had a handfull of wigs she would throw on because we would head out so early in the morning “fishing wigs” she called them.   Then of course Grandpa had to build her a pond in the backyard so she could keep the catfish in it, they somehow became pets not to be eaten. 

And cook! No one, I mean no one could throw a meal together in no time and out of practically nothing that was delicious!  Once I saw her make a pie crust from the crumbs in the cookie jar, she had come through the Great Depression, and they didn’t waste anything! She was also a modern women, I remember her making a steamed vegetable platter she saw in a magazine, she cooked it in this new thing called a microwave.  Yes, my Granny could sew, cook, fish, she even played basketball in high school because she was tall for a girl, but best of all, she just loved.

After she retired she took up painting, oil painting, just a hobby.  She displayed some of her paintings at the Yaquina Art Gallery on the Oregon coast where she and her friends would take turns “babysittn the gallery”, she even sold a few. 

One of the greatest things she passed on to me was that I could do anything myself.  She had an empty dresser drawer in the spare bedroom that she would fill up all year with goodies for us.  When we pulled up to her house the first thing we would do, after all the hugs and kisses, was make a beeline for the dresser.  It was full of all kinds of things but most of all projects we could work on together.  I loved that, it’s probably the reason why I enjoy doing so many different things now. 

Because of my Granny I have always tried to have something for the kids to do.  Today I said to Lexi (8 years old) “we need to do a project”, she replied “I want to write a story”.  So while Lexi wrote her story,  I thought of my Granny, and the wonderful dresser drawer full of memories.  I have a lot of drawers in my house, filled with all kinds of stuff, and I’m just hoping that there will be some memories for them to take along the way. 

SCROLL PAST HAND WRITTEN VERSION FOR THE TYPED VERSION

“THE PRINCESS” as written by Lexi

Once upon a time there was a princess.  She was only 8 and her name was Sarha.  She would get every thing she wanted except a prince.  She was mad that her mom and dad wouldn’t let her have a prince.  So one day she begged her mom and dad for a prince but they both said no.  So when she got bigger she snucked out when her mom and dad where a sleep.  So then she started walking untill a boy came up to her.  She asked him if he could be her prince.  So the boy said yes so Sarha said meet me tomorrow and the boy said by the way my name is David.  So the next day Sarha brought him to her house.  So Sarha got her mom and dad.  Next she brought her mom and dad to the boy and Sarha said this is David.  So they sat down and talked and Sarha’s mom and dad where thinking that she was old enough to have a prince.  So they both said Sarha you can have a prince.  Sarha was so happy.  So she said thank you.  So Sarha asked David if he still wanted to be her prince and David said yes.  She was so happy.  So the next day she moved out of her mom’s and dad’s house.  Also Sarha said would you marry me.  So David said yes and so they would do everything together.  They said we are the perfect match.  They both said yep we are.  Also they would never yell at each other or fight at each other.  They were so happy together they both lived happley ever after. 

THE END

This, from an 8 year old!