Grandma Lou

Hey!  Welcome back!!  I want to share of few of my stories about my Grandma Lou with you. I hope this blog gives you a few smiles and maybe a few giggles.  My grandma was an angel with an infectious laugh.  She was a spitfire as a young woman and I could sit for hours and listen to her memories. She is a major pillar in my life and has helped to shape me into the person I am today.  In 2004, after putting up a helluva fight that included chemo, she passed away from breast cancer surrounded by family.

Wonderful Memories

I have such wonderful memories of the time I was able to spend with her.  I remember that her house seemed like a bed and breakfast.  The bedrooms looked like a page from a magazine and the bed was always comfortable.  I remember always waking up to the smell of coffee, bacon, and biscuits.  The amazing smells would always have me sliding out of bed and stumbling into the kitchen to see Grandma dressed in her housecoat working her magic.  I remember eating Cheez-Its and watching scary shows with Grandma.  I remember us walking down the street, or in a parking lot, for a little bit of exercise and to get some fresh air.  Inevitably, she would always find some sort of trinket along the walk, maybe an earring, maybe a ring, or maybe a coin.  I remember sitting around the dining table playing Yahtzee or cards while drinking coffee and laughing until the weeeee hours of the morning.  I could continue to go on about my memories but this blog would be incredibly long if I did that.

Always the Joke Teller

I don’t think she ever finished telling a joke.  She knew the punchline so she would get tickled halfway through the joke and crack up into incontrollable laughter while we waited for her finish the joke.  She would throw her head back and bring her hand over her mouth to help muffle the cackling.  Her cheeks would ride up high enough for her eyes to disappear (exactly like mine does) and tears would flow from her eyes, which caused her to alternate wiping her eyes and holding her hand over her mouth.  All the while, her whole body would jiggle with her laughter as she tried to get it together.  Eventually she would squash the laughter long enough to say 3 more words and then crumble into laughter again.  Before she could finish the joke, we would all be howling with laughter because of how infectious her laughter and happiness was even though we didn’t know the punchline.

 

Feeding Cats

Grandma Lou was an animal lover and the animals loved her, too.  She loved big dogs and she adored my dog, Diva.  After Grandma passed away, I brought home a few articles of her clothing and hung them in my closet.  Diva spent a large amount of time rubbing against her clothes, in the same way a cat rubs against your legs. Grandma loved feeding the stray cats.  Behind her home was a large amount of woods and they would get numerous stray cats that would come up for a meal.  Grandma Lou and Grandpa Fred would even feed them by hand, just so they could give these stray cats a little bit of love.  Grandma had one cat that was especially standoffish.  She tried and tried but despite her repeated attempts, the cat would not eat out of her hand.  Grandma would squat down and make herself as small as possible to appear less threatening to this cat but it still wouldn’t have any part of it.

After continuous failed attempts, she told Grandpa Fred about this particular cat.  She told him about everything she had tried and described how the cat would “only come this close” as she indicated approximately 5 feet.  So the next time she went out to feed the strays, Grandpa went with her and she did her normal routine.  She squatted down to the ground and hand-fed multiple stray cats before the standoffish cat showed up.  As she held more food in her hand and shoved it out towards the elusive cat, she told Grandpa “There!  There it is!!  See?”   Stunned, but luckily not speechless, Grandpa said “LOU!!  THAT IS A BOBCAT!!  It will tear your arm off!”  Thankfully the cat never did come close enough to eat of her hand but I have to tell ya, it would not surprise me one single bit if that big bobcat had actually eaten out of her hand and allowed her to pet it.  She was special and the animals knew it.

Her Wig

Chemo caused Grandma lose her hair so she bought a really nice Raquel Welch wig.  She was no stranger to wearing wigs because when she was a young woman, she would wear wigs on the days she didn’t feel like fixing her hair.  I loved hearing her tell stories of how the people at the bar would make bets about if it was her real hair or a wig.  She told me that once a woman came over and said “Ok. Is it real or not?” so Grandma told her that tonight it was, in fact, her real hair.  Apparently the woman didn’t believe her so she reached up slowly and pinched a small section of hair and gave it a light tug.  Upon realizing that Grandma was telling the truth, the woman said “Dang it!  I just lost $10!”

Her wig was the topic of many conversations.  She and I went to Wal-Mart one day when it was raining.  She was worried about her hair in the same way that we are all worried about the rain destroying our style.  I told her that she had the best hair possible because she could put her hair in the purse so it doesn’t get wet and then put it on when she gets in the store!  Without missing a beat, she replied “No! Everyone will think there is an old man walking in the store with you!”

Grandma was a big lady, like me, but it didn’t hinder her activity.  As I said before, Grandma would go outside and squat down and feed the cats by hand.  One time she squatted down to feed the cats and got butt-heavy and lost her balance.  Unable to recover, she fell over backwards, rolled over to the side, hit the picnic table, and her wig fell off.  She said she jumped up and grabbed her wig and slapped it back on because she didn’t want Grandpa to see her rolling around in the yard.  When she went back in the house, Grandpa was in the kitchen and he said “Lou? Is everything ok?” and she replied “Of course!” as she sauntered through the kitchen and down the hall.  She said “When I got to the bathroom, I realized why he asked me if everything was ok!  When I slapped my wig on, I put the dang thing on sideways!  My bangs were right here!!” and she was using her hand to swipe the area above her right ear to indicate exactly where the bangs were situated.

The Narc

My Grandma’s best friend’s name was Thelma.  I am not joking!!  Thelma and Louise!  Obviously their antics began long before the movie but I figure they had some wild adventures that could rival the Hollywood script.  I have no idea how old they were during some of these stories.  I always imagined them to be mid 20s but maybe that is because a lot of my wild stories happened during my 20s.  Thelma and Louise boarded the city bus dressed in the trendy fashion of the day, polyester pant suits, and chose their seats. They were minding their own business and chatting amongst themselves when a guy behind them tapped them on the shoulder.  When they turned around to speak to him, he said “I know who you are”.  They gave him a puzzled look so he leaned in whispered “You’re narcs, aren’t you?” while smiling as if he figured out the secret.  They just smiled and turned around, effectively letting the guy believe they were actually narcs.  Can you imagine how hard they laughed when the exited the bus?  I’m assuming they looked pretty sharp in their polyester pant suits if a stranger mistakenly assumed they were federal agents/narcs.

Lights Out

Grandma and Thelma lived together so when something happened, they would deal with it as a duo.  For instance, when the electricity went out in their house, they both went to the basement to check the breaker box.  As Grandma told it, at the time they both had high hair, which I envision was quintessential beehive.  Despite the high hair and the copious amounts of hairspray that would have been used to hold the beehive in position, they grabbed up a newspaper, rolled it up, and lit it like a torch.  She did not mention why they didn’t use a flashlight, and I never thought to ask.  The two of them, Thelma and Louise, went creeping through the dark with their torch, heading towards the basement.  Once they reached the bottom of the basement stairs, they decided to walk along the top of a rolled up carpet, like a balance beam.  Thelma was in the front, Grandma walking behind her, carrying the torch.  The house was silent and pitch black, except for the torch.

They crept along the top of the carpet roll, knowing that the breaker box was on the wall at the end of the carpet.  Halfway through the trek, out of nowhere, something ever so lightly landed right in the middle of Grandma’s forehead.  Let the flailing begin!  Grandma began wildly waving the torch like a mad woman trying to shoo away whatever creepy crawly thing landed on her face.  It took her a few minutes to gather herself and stop laughing before she could explain to me that they finally found the offender.  It was the end of the light bulb string that hung down from the light fixture.  Since they were walking on the carpet roll, they were higher off the ground than normal so the string that would have been above her head was now directly in line with her forehead!  Grandma said she has no idea how she didn’t catch both of them on fire because she was swinging and waving the torch around without a thought about hair or hairspray.

Let it also be known that I have no idea if they ever made it to the breaker box and if they did, I don’t know if they were able to flip the switch and get the electricity back on.  Watching her re-enact this scene was a huge delight for me.  She put on a serious face while showing how she crept along the carpet roll with the newspaper torch and then would crack up into laughter because she knew what was coming.  The rest of the story was told through laughter and the occasional pause to wipe the tears from her eyes.

 

Thank you, all, for sharing a few minutes of my memories and flipping through a few pictures.  I have way more stories, fun times, and great pictures of my family but I will save those for a future post!!  Make a ton of memories because one day, that will be all you have.