My Grandmother

6/17/12

My Grandmother

I loved my grandmother.  No flowery adjectives needed, I just plain loved her.  Growing up as a military brat, we didn't get to see her as often as we would have liked.So all visits with her were very special.  In 1965 after my Dad's retirement from the Air Force, we were fortunate to be able to move to Illinois and for the first time, live in the same town with Grandma.

Here are some, but certainly not all, fond memories of her.  She was a large  turkey and chicken breeder for Purina Feed in the 50's and a visit to her on the farm was special for us kids.  Little known fact - turkeys are dumb.  She kept the Toms separated from the Hens and the Toms would sit on top of the metal water container roofs the hot sun until their feet burned.  Talk about stupid.  As a child of oh perhaps 10 or so, she gave my brother and I are piece of rubber hose and told us to go down to where the Toms were and use the hose to knock the turkeys off the roofs.  That exercise, at least for me, was one turkey long and then I quit.  Grandma had failed to mention that turkeys have a huuuuuuuuge wing span and when you "hit" (for lack of a better word) them, they spread those wings out and sometimes there was stuff on those wings - icky stuff like bird poo and it landed on you.  Nope not gonna do that job.

I was then reassigned to the brooder house where the chickens were.  Little baby chicks everywhere who were so cute and then the big chickens who weren't cute and kind of mean.  Inside the brooder house the water was in large troughs and you were supposed to run your hand from one end of the trough to the other and along the way scooping up whatever wasn't water and toss it on the ground.  I did one trough - had to smell my hand - of course!  Gross who poops in their water anyway - nasty.  So my trough cleaning job was also a short run.

I liked visiting the farm - I just didn't want to actually "work" on the farm.  And all the jobs on a farm were either very dirty or smelly or both.  I was a girlie girl and didn't want anything to do with dirt or odors.  My brother being older was allowed to drive the tractor and I was allowed to ride on the back.  I stood on the back of the tractor and my brother told me to hold on - I wasn't exactly sure where but the springs of the tractor seat looked like a good place - until he sat down and boy did those springs compress!  

My grandmother always and I do mean always had candy corn at her house.  She kept it in a little china house (which I now know is called cottage ware) and you lifted the lid and voila there was candy.  She also always carried Chiclet gum in her purse and somehow that always seemed to be a huge treat too - even though we could only have one square at a time.

Do I miss her?  You bet.  Grandma was non-judgmental and gave unconditional love, no matter how much you had screwed up.


Now that I'm a grandmother I want to be like her.  I want life-long memories to be made at my house and I want to be that kind, understanding, loving and compassionate person that she
was - always.


P