My Life and Dreams

Our Grandparents- Part 1

Grandma-Next-Door

Mike definitely takes after our Grandma-Next-Door. She seemed to complain a lot but not as much as Mike does now. Dad tended to do that sometimes too. They would be watching “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous” together and be bitching about the stars on there. Mike and I wondered why they even bothered watching this if it got on their nerves so much.

Once I heard her complain about her own friend Ellie “Why is she always calling me?” as if she was pestering her. She should just be happy to have her as her friend. She seemed nice. Mike said that she’d even be this way about her own sister Rachel. Mike and I still laugh about a card that grandma got from Ellie. It had cartoon depictions of various types of butts such as B.B. – big butt.

We were talking to a couple of people after mass one time and grandma had wandered off. Tony drove around looking for her. I think that she was waiting at a bus stop for the bus to NYC or maybe she was in downtown Linden. She told us that she was getting tired of waiting for us to leave the church.

Grandma and I took a bus trip down the shore in the early 1980s- Long Branch. She bought me a souvenir, a figure made out of shells.

Dad always went to her house before even coming home after work. He was mad if we didn’t visit her often enough. Don’t get me wrong, I loved my grandma but I didn’t want to see her every day. We hardly ever got to see our other grandma.

Mike and I liked watching “The Price is Right” and “Wheel of Fortune” with her. She enjoyed watching “The Lawrence Welk Show” (so dull!) which Dad still watches, “Merv Griffin” and “60 Minutes”. She liked Liberace and Engelbert Humperdinck too. There was a televangelist that she also watched. I think that it was Jimmy Swaggart. I asked Mike if he remembered this for sure and he said that this might be the one.

Mike wants her waffle iron so badly. He said that Dad told him that he can’t find it. We know it’s still there so obviously he isn’t looking. He moved into her place during and after our parents’ divorce. Mike loved going over to her house for waffles and other good foods that she made like stuffed cabbage, potato pancakes, and rice and bread puddings.

She loved playing bingo and even had little lucky charms. She also had a Lottery Dreambook. I wonder if she ever won anything using that. It gave you a lottery number to correspond with the type of dream that you had. She liked clipping coupons which I got into doing because of her.

Grandma visited her nephew Frankie in California 2 times in the late 70s. We took her to Newark Airport and would stand by the gate to see her off and welcome her back home. When was the last time that anyone was actually allowed to do this? We took a tour of that airport and a TWA plane there in the mid-1970s; I still have my TWA pin from that.

She went to Disneyland, Knott’s Berry Farm and I think Fisherman’s Wharf also. One time her sisters Rachel and Harriet, Frankie’s mom, went with her. I’m pretty sure that Dad told us that Frankie and his partner whose job was fixing up and reselling houses sold one to Stevie Wonder. That’s so cool!

Grandma was on a ladder cleaning windows when she fell and broke her leg. We were outside playing and saw this happen which was really upsetting.

Her favorite perfume was Wind Song which Mike and I would get her as gifts. I got her 2 pairs of pewter earrings that came in such a box – mushrooms and owls. She loved owls and now I do too. She never seemed to like the presents that mom got her and sometimes would even say “I don’t really care for that” which is pretty rude. There was one Christmas gift that mom got her that she liked a lot – a Faye Swafford purse with her initial on it.

She made stuffed animals – Mickey and Minnie Mouse-for Mike and me. She did a latch hook leopard pillow for me. I wish that I still had these 3 things and also some of the necklaces that she got me – Raggedy Ann, Statue of Liberty and a blue heart with a gold cross.

She had a stroke in 1986 that affected her speech. If she had put more of an effort into therapy maybe it would have improved a bit more. I’m picturing her taking care of my Ginger up in heaven and going to Bingo also. There goes my weird imagination again.