My Granny was my world when I was little. My mama and my daddy were my security, but Granny was...something else. She was my giggle, and I don't know that anyone else ever saw that part of her. She was ignorant, yet wise; nothing special to look at, but completely beautiful. She was soft enough to drink her coffee with Sweet and Low and drink "Doc" (Diet Dr. Pepper, because she was diabetic) and hard enough to fix cars with a cigarette hanging out of her mouth, and build pens for her goats. Hard enough to figure out what was wrong with her tiller when it was time to plant the garden and the tiller wouldn't crank. She was mean enough to say ugly things to her daughters, who did everything right, and weak enough to bail her sons out of jail. She was strong enough to face her sons and talk them down when they were drunk enough to come after her with a machete (I witnessed this) and weak enough to resent her daughters when everything seemed to be going well with them.The first 8 years of my life were spent in a little green house at 508 Sloss Street in Hartselle, Alabama. I'm not sure the exact year that Granny and Mama and Aunt Marty moved into that house, but I know that Mama and Aunt Marty lived there while they were in High School. Once Mama and Daddy got married, they bought granny a trailer to put on a lot just down the briar covered hill. Once I was born, there was a trail worn by my feet between the little green house and Granny's trailer. This was just in front of Shit Creek, which is what my ever eloquent Granny called that body of water that was just in front of the train tracks in the woods.
I dream about her and/or that house about once a month. Sometimes she's there and happy to see me. Sometimes she's sick and doesn't know who I am, but appreciates my company. Sometimes she is just watching soap operas and smoking cigarettes. Sometimes she is frying eggs and sometimes she is dancing.
She danced with me all the time when I was little. She would put on a Statler Brothers or Freddy Fender or Loretta Lynn album and sing along while she did a little finger snap and foot shuffle. I don't know that anyone but I ever saw her dance.
5 comments:
I recollect you telling me she would fix you a hot toddy when you were sick! I also recall the two of us walking to her house from my Aunt Nan's once upon a Saturday morning. She was quite a character, a person to remember. It's no wonder you still dream about her... and some of those dreams can be very comforting, even if they seem a little sad.
For me it was always Friday night supper and Dallas. I remember it well.
I also remember how surprised I was to learn that she played fiddle in a barn dance band in her youth.
That woman led many lives.
The old house out back was so full of treasure... I mean: junk (do you remember?). And snakes, in retrospect. It's a wonder it didn't crash down all around us!
maybe she is actually coming to you in your dreams and visiting.
Gregory, I hope all is well with you. I'm still sorry I never got to see you preform while you lived in chicago
she sounds very magical.
Its nice that you dream of her.
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