::Granny Grunt: A Memorial Day Tribute
10:35 a.m. - 2004-05-31
Happy Memorial Day everyone.
I'd like to take this opportunity to share with you memories of my grandma. Since it's Memorial Day and all...and nothing is going on in my REAL CURRENT life...you get grandma stories.
My first memory of Granny Grunt (to this day I have no idea where that name came from) is sitting with her on the porch swing at her great big rock house on a beautiful spring day singing somthing to the effect of "Just a-swingin." GG babysat me a lot when I was little, so we did that a lot.
When I was a little kid, we lived in a trailer house about a hundred yards away from GG's house. One day my mom had some of her friends over playing music. It was pretty outside and I was kind of impatient. I kept bugging mom to help me put my hair up so I could go play. But she wouldn't listen to me, she was busy playing music (of course it didn't help that when I asked her it was most likely in the MIDDLE of a song and not between songs...I was three and didn't get that whole "wait for a break" thing yet). So I decided I was going to run away. So I slipped of course, and ran. All the way to GG's. She put my hair up and gave me some kool-aid before she called my mom. "Are you missing something?" she asked. They hadn't even noticed I was gone yet. We still laugh about that to this day.
Granny was a fiesty lady. With six kids she birthed and two she adopted when her sister died (six boys and two girls in all) and at least four extra kids at her house ALL THE TIME, she had to be. She was also completely unashamed and uninhibited. She sang and danced to the music in the department store, and the mall and in line at the grocery store with all of her (probably really embarrassed) kids in tow (maybe that's where I get it from). If she had an itch, she scratched it. Even if it meant taking off her shirt in the middle of a store to get to that spot right in the middle of her back. Anyway, I learned some of my first words from her. When she used to drop things, she cursed. And you know kids...they pick up exactly the words you wish you'd never said in front of them. I was maybe two-ish. I had a bowl of peas, and I was sitting in my high chair. I raked them off into the floor (probably even on purpose) and yelled "Shit, shit, shit!" GG got a call that day. But I think that everyone was laughing too hard to really be mad at her.
About the extra kiddos, she was a very generous awesome lady too. They had a few foreign exchange students over the years. When a family moved away and the kid wanted to finish out the school year or stay until graduation or whatever, GG took them in. Or if a kid wasn't gettin along with his parents and got kicked out or needed to be away for a while, they stayed at GG's. EVERYBODY came over to that house. So there was ALWAYS drama. But there was also someone there for you. Always.
There are THOUSANDS of stories about my grandma, and about my Grandma Rosie (Granny Grunt's mother-in-law) that lived with them for so many years. But I think we've covered it for today. Next time life is boring, I'll bring out the stories again. Deal? deal.
For now? I'm goin swimmin.
Paca!
