| 7/05/2005 |
THOSE WERE THE DAYS by Archie & Edith Bunker
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I'd said that I would tell this story another time. So I am...
My Great-grandmother passed away almost 20 years ago. She never met my little brother. So doing the math poorly in my head I figured I was about 13 at the time. My Great-grandmother (GGM) was a nice enough woman. She was born just before the turn of the century and, at the time, was the only person I knew who was born in an 1800-numbered year. That just added to idea of how old I thought she was.
I lived with my Grandmother. The reason is simple, but which is a story for another time. My Grandmother still worked. So my GGM, who normally lived an hour-and-a-half away moved in with my Grandparents. She took care of my toddler-self during the day. As I got older she wasn't needed as a baby-sitter, but remained living with us. If memory serves, I was about 10 when she moved out.
My memories of her are not bad. They are not good, but not in a way that means anything happened. She was a parent from a different era. I was a child from messed up parents who had issues of his own. Sometimes the idea of my Grandmother leaving for work was an issue. I remember her being cold, in many ways. Temperature. Her room was always cold. Being in her 70s, she was always cold. Her house in Falls City smelled. I didn't like going there. Which was something we did pretty regularly. My Grandparents and I would go there to mow her lawn, pick up any mail, and run any errands that might need to be done, when she was living there again. When I say her house smelled, it isn't a bad thing. It is just an association I've made. Smells can be very powerful stimulants. We would go to her house and I would find boxes full of Reader's Digests and TV Guides from decades past. National Geographics from before when NG had photos on all their covers. National Geographics were like grown-up Ranger Rick magazines for me. So to find a treasure trove of them in a closet was an exciting day.
Her house was filled with out-dated furniture. Nothing that was worth any money or that even held any significance to anyone. Just old furniture. I would often take naps on her couch while my Grandparents worked outside. Her couch was covered in an old blanket that had knotty nubs of thread/yarn that would form delicate patterns on the fabric. I would be later reminded of this when we'd make string art projects in school. The fabric hurt my face to lay on, so I used one of the only two throw pillows available. They were hard plastic, the color of bars of soap. They smelled like the house. The couch smelled like the house.
She had a television inside. Black and white, with two knobs. One dial I recognized the numbers as stations I could watch if I was home. The other knob had significantly more tick marks on it, indicating more numbers. A UHF dial, if I recall correctly. Falls City didn't seem to be ideally located to get any of the channels that I was used to finding. I imagine having a TV that was just still a few generations shy of High Definition was probably part of the lack of viewable programming. So outside I stayed.
My Grandparents would spend the afternoon mowing her lawn. My job was to pick up any sticks or rocks that might be in the yard before the mower hit them. She had an electric mower for them to use. The cord was damaged in several places where it had accidentally been ran over. Duct tape marked the incidences clearly. I would sit on the back porch a they mowed the backyard. Across the alley was a restaurant. I would guess that it was probably a Dairy Queen, but I'm not sure. They served the same type of food as a DQ. I remember the smell of cooking hamburgers and greasy french fries. Occasionally we would stop there on the way back home. The street in front of her house was lined with brick cobblestones. The cars made a distinctly different sound on brick than they did on pavement. Even on my own home town streets, I'd notice this. That sound still reminds me of 'old'. I would hear stories about Model T's that my Grandparents could remember driving around town on those old streets. That just added to the already old mental image I had of the place.
My GGM owned a Ford Rambler, I don't recall the year, but I've always thought in my head it was 1963. I can't find photos to verify anything tho. Plastic seat coverings. No power anything... and I do mean anything! This was the car in which I would eventually learn to drive. In a gravel parking lot. I'm was not a strong kid. It was like pulling a mule to make a left hand turn. I'd have to stop and catch my breath. The car eventually went to my Aunt who drove it for years. I don't know how she did it.
The house was small, but there was a basement. Your typical creepy basement found in old homes that smelled in old towns whose streets made funny noises. There wasn't much ever kept down there. A 'cave' as we called it where canned good were kept. I don't recall a washer or dryer and the more I think about it, I don't know how she did laundry. Because she didn't drive anymore, to be able to get to a laundromat.
I wasn't privy tot he conversation if it did happen, but she moved back to her home a few years before she passed away. The same way an animals finds shelter in which to take it's last nap.
It was a humid summer morning. I think it was June 21st (or somewhere close to that, since it was the longest day of the year). I had been awake for sometime and was already outside playing with the other kids in the neighborhood. We were going to have a picnic. Pack up some lunch and take it somewhere. Who knows where we were 'really' going, but it was what the plan was. I went inside to make myself a couple peanut butter sandwiches when the phone rang. My Grandmother went from calm to shot nerves in the matter of a few sentences. It was my Uncle Ken (My Grandmother's brother) who had found his mother. She passed away in her sleep. No one had heard from her in a while so, Uncle Ken was the one to drive down and check on her. Their concerns were all part of conversations that I wasn't privy too.
My Grandmother hung up the phone and called for my Grandfather who was outside working in his garage. She went to the bathroom and was getting ready as though she was going out for dinner. I wasn't quite sure what was going on. I don't recall that she specifically ever did say what had happened. I think I eventually just figured it out from the way she was acting.
She said she was going to Falls City. I asked if I could stay home and still be able to go on my picnic. Looking back I realize how bizarre and insensitive that seemed. Yet, I had no experience with death prior to this moment. I'd never seen a dead body. I never had a family member pass away. I'd never been to another person's funeral that I could recall. What did I know?
I stayed home while they went to Falls City.
Within the next few days the funeral was held. It was such an odd event for me. Having already told you about my experience in the matters of death, it was odd on many levels. It was like a family reunion with relatives that I rarely saw, except everyone was sad. My Aunt was in a skirt (which never happened). There was someone that I was supposed to have known laying not to far away. Yet I didn't recognize her. I can only manage a vague image of the scene as it unfolded.
This was the woman who taught me how to read. We'd spend hours going through the newspaper and I'd pick out the word 'the' every time I saw it and would circle it. Then we'd move on to another word. This was the woman who scolded me for not eating my Cream of Wheat while it was hot. It tasted better (if such a thing was possible to begin with) to me when it was cold. A liking that I'm pretty sure I don't still have. She was the one who I can remember holding the door shut as I tried to get inside the house. I don't know why she was blocking the door, but she was. I doubt it was anything mean-spirited. This was the woman who taught me how to count to ten in German.
I don't know what brought up any of these memories now, other than just the memories themselves wanting to be told. They do that sometimes. |
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I posted this @ 7/05/2005 01:16:00 PM.............Need a link?..........
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