The "Lady" in my Life (My G'ma)

I always enjoyed being around my grandmother. She was about 4'10" and probably weighed 230 pounds. She was the sexiest, most intelligent woman in the world to me. She had knowledge, grace, humor and class that only grew with her age and with each encounter we shared.

My grandparents lived in a shack after the big house burned. There were quilts over the windows and an outhouse. There was an old tree stump that they used for chopping off the heads of chickens. (Now, that is quite a memory....... although a bit traumatizing, it left an image I will never forget.... HOW the hell did a chicken run around without a head...... one of those things similar to an airplane flying..... HOW HOW HOW???)

Out in the back yard were fig trees and fences and an underground fort that my uncles booby trapped. There were doors that would knock you on your ass if you happened to touch them just right. It did just that to my grouchy ol' grandpa! My uncle, although a mere 10 years old at the time, wasn't seen nor heard from for three days.

I cannot ever remember anything but fun times when I visited. There were chickens and cows and, once, there was even a horse that stayed for a bit. And way out in the back forty, there were a couple of donkeys.

My grandmother was the one that introduced me to art and coloring and making beautiful pictures...... even as the wind blew thru the cracks in the walls. The papers often blew everywhere. (We even laughed and chuckled at picking them up off of the floor..... or if there was a new mark on the sheet of paper, we incorporated it into the final end product.)

My grandmother's sisters and brother seemed to be from the other side of the tracks and had uptown houses and cars and it never seemed to bother my grandma. Matter of fact, her inner peace and joy seemed to aggravate many of the family. But, you can bet my dad and my uncles worshipped the ground she walked on.