“Well I guess I don’t know
anything… but did you hear…” My grandma
had a lot of sayings and words that over the years we’ve begun to refer to as
“grannyisms”. But this was the one that
if you waited long enough would always be followed by a good story or the
latest news of the county because of course Grandma knew everything.
Well I guess I don’t know
anything, but I have a few stories that grandma told or was part of over the
years.
Mud dobbers - She would
often tell us the story of her and her two brothers Bob and Lester entertaining
themselves by building dams and playing in the creek near their farm. And once they made makeshift boats out of
wooden fence posts and began floating toward a quickly flooding four mile creek
and being found by their mother
and yelled at just in time
to save themselves from the flood waters.
You could always tell this
was something that stuck with her.
Looking back I’m sure this is at the root of her incredible fear of
water that she passed on to most of my family.
People often comment on the pond they see as they drive by the
farm. What they don’t realize is that’s
the only view of it we’re allowed as well.
By the time I came along my
grandparents had been married close to
25 years, raised 6 kids, and settled into their roles and unwritten job
descriptions. I’ll never forget that my
grandma expected my grandpa to take out the trash. And if he needed reminding she’d shout one of
her “grannyisms” from the kitchen “Harold, get out here. This trash is having pups.”
Often when you’re young and
you see your grandparents as old, it’s hard to picture them ever being
young. One of my favorite stories that
Grandma told was about here meeting Grandpa.
They were both apparently big in the square dance scene (it’s hard to imagine
that being a scene, but…) She noticed him from across the room. You could tell from the unspoken part of the
story that she pretty immediately developed a crush. But she said her hopes were cut short when
she realized that he came with no less than 3 girls. Well grandma was nothing if not persistent,
so she did some inquiring and much to her relief found out they were his
sisters. So they began a dance that
carried them through 45 years of marriage, 6 children, 12 grandchildren and 4
great grandchildren. And as grandma
would say, More adventures than “Carter’s got liver pills.”
As one of those
grandchildren. I’m sure we would all
agree that grandma taught us so much from how to cook, to how to play baseball,
to how to drive… And she did it with a
love and patience that we all did our best to test the limits of.
As the oldest, I was often
the ring leader of the many stunts and pranks that Kellie, Brian and I pulled
during our summers at the farm. From
Chinese fire drills in the middle of Eaton, to leaving the car windows cracked
while going through the carwash, to our incessant singing “there’s a hole in
the bucket”, to turning her staircase
into a slide, she continued to love us and seemed to even enjoy some of our
pranks even though she’d report to our parents and others that we were acting
like a bunch of “banny roosters?” We
always knew we were loved.
Our worst prank that has
gone down in the family history books was the summer that someone was
consistently not flushing the toilet.
Grandma was determined to find the culprit and certain that she could
identify him or her by the evidence left at the scene. The three of us decided to test her detective
skills. We went to the barn, scooped a
fresh pile from one of the horses into a bucket. Snuck back to the house, dumped it in the
toilet and then waited for her to discover it.
I’ll never forget her walking in “Oh My God!.... Harold, get in here.”
That was our cue to exit.
The thing grandma is
probably most known for besides her love of her family was her love of
animals. Every kind of animal. And there was no sense in having just
one. Animals were always for breeding to
make more animals.
Horses, cows, chickens,
geese, ducks, ponies, minature horses, draft horses, goats, sheep, cats, dogs
of every breed. Peacocks, ferrets, there
was once talk of starting a chinchilla operation – I’m glad that one never
materialized.
During the summers we’d
would make an almost weekly trip to the Brookeville farmer’s market, or the
Rushville horse auction, or the Eaton livestock auction and sometimes we’d hit
all three in a week.
I can’t tell you how many
times us grandkids shared the backseat with a crate of ducks on the way to the
market, and newly purchased, geese, goats, or other animal on the way
back. Once Judy, Grandma and I went to
the state fair and I lost my shoes. Of
course we couldn’t leave, so I had to carry our newest find “a long-haired
rabbit” barefoot for an entire day around the fair grounds.
But her favorite animal was
the horse, of course. Almost every
weekend we were at a horseshow. And
during the week we were practicing, riding, cleaning and preparing for the next
weekend. This was serious business. Grandma made us ride 3 times a day –
occasionally 4 times. Sometimes we would
have to ride other horses besides our own b/c ours were tired. Grandma always
expected us to work hard. Teaching us
that there was nothing that couldn’t be done with a little elbow grease.
Horseshows were high
priority in our family. Harold made them
take Judy to the doctor before they could go to quarter horse congress. Ended up in the hospital for appendicitis.
Each year all our efforts
culminated at the county fair. There is
no place my grandma would rather be. In
the last few years when the thought of her going to the fair scared most of us,
she was still shopping for the perfect camper that only got used that one week
out of the year.
When she moved into the rest
home earlier this year and her mind started to trick her more and more. There was one trick that I thought was
beautiful. She often thought she was at
the Fair, and would call family members for rides home. At first that made me sad, but then I thought
“how great!” because I’m convinced there’s no place she’d rather be.
To close I want to borrow
one more grannyism. I can’t really say
more than this. “Grandma, we love you
and take it easy.”
