Granny Mae

Grandma, my maternal grandmother, holds a special place in my heart. Mama worked in a sewing plant all of my growing up years and my brother and I stayed with Grandma while Mama worked. She lived a mile or so from Mama's so the arrangement was quite convenient for Mama.

Mama had to be at work by 7:00 a.m. so she would take us to Grandma's on her way to work. If the mornings were cold, she would take a blanket to the space heater and warm it up and wrap it around us before carrying us out to the car. Once we got to Grandma's, we would go behind her old wood stove and take a quick bath out of the old tin pan Grandma would have ready for us. Grandma made sure that we were spit shine clean and then feed us breakfast. Now, breakfast was a BIG breakfast. She always had grits, eggs, bacon or sausage and biscuits or toast. One thing that I do remember her feeding us occasionally mixed up in our eggs was brains. Had I known just what I was eating I probably would not have been able to choke them down! The grocery stores actually sold brains (pig) in a can! They probably still do, but I don't remember seeing them and I certainly haven't been looking for them.

After breakfast we brushed our teeth and got ready to get on the school bus. In the winter the bus ran before the sun came up. We lived in the country and were some of the first on the bus. My brother, Thomas, hated school. My uncle had helped him make a couple of rabbit boxes. For those of you who don't know what that is...it is a rectangle shaped wooden box made with a trap door. Food (lettuce or something like that) would be placed in the box as bait and the unsuspecting rabbit would hop in for the food and trip the door. The rabbit would then be supper that night. Well, Thomas knew that Grandma couldn't drive. He would on occassion run to check on his rabbit boxes when he heard the bus coming. Needless to say, the bus left him and he got the day off. I don't ever remember him being punished for this. I really don't think that he would have cared what the punishment was as long as he got to stay at home!

After school the bus dropped us off at Grandma's house. When we got there she always had us a banana sandwich and a bowl of Campbell's chicken noodle soup. She never heated the soup. I didn't know until I was old enough to buy it and fix it for myself that it really could/should be heated. After our little snack, she would help us with our homework. I remember her drilling the multiplication table, vocabulary words and the states and capitols until I finally got them. The one capitol that I just could not remember was Madison, Wisconsin. No matter what I did I just couldn't remember that one. She would not give up. She drilled and drilled and even made a little song to help me remember it. In my early twenties I actually had the chance to fly to Madison. I just had to bring her back a little memento of the city. She got a real chuckle out of it.

Summers were also spent with her. We made houses out in the woods by piling up pinestraw for walls and using rocks for sofas and tables. In my mind, my house was always glamorus! Grandma would give us old pots and pans and we would cook up mud pies and mud tea. Yum! I always had my dolls in my beautiful house and Thomas always had his trucks and tractors.

Behind Grandma's house was a creek. It was at the bottom of a hill well out of site of the house. She just never seemed to worry about us. I would be horrified to think my grandchildren were playing in a creek! We would re-arrange the rocks in the creek to dam up certain parts of it so we would take a splash. Thomas would fish and would occassionaly catch a small brim. God had to have been watching over us as I don't ever remember seeing the first snake! Don't tell me miracles don't happen! Our imaginations were allowed to roam free and we soaked up all the sunshine and fresh air possible.