I’ve never really had an aversion to clowns, but understand why some people do. Two of my favorite childhood toys were a pair of clowns that my Great Grandmother, Mabel Anderson, made for me. She knitted the bodies in a bright, rainbow colored yarn. The clowns reflected Grandma’s personality: bright, funny, flexible, and easy to love. She enjoyed knitting and sewing, playing cards, crossword puzzles and soap operas. She was a vivacious and feisty lady.

Here are some of my favorite stories and memories of her:

Grandma was known for her lead foot. She drove a copper colored Omega Hatchback with a glasspack muffler that seemed to add to her reputation as a ‘speed demon’. Once while driving in either Wyoming or Nebraska, she was pulled over. The officer asked her to sit in his patrol car and she replied, “My mother told me to never get into a car with a strange man.” And she didn’t.

Another story details her encounter with a judge after a highway patrol officer pulled her over for speeding. She decided to fight this particular ticket and arrived in court on the specified date. She explained to the judge that she had gotten stuck behind some old man driving well below the posted speed limit. When she finally got around him, she sped up to make up for lost time (this was her defense). The judge didn’t agree with her reasoning and she was given the ticket and court costs. Upon reviewing the court costs, she addressed the judge, “It says here there’s a $1 fee for your retirement. Well, you didn’t pay for my retirement and I’m not going to pay for yours.” She paid the ticket and court costs minus $1, and walked out. Grandma was around 70 years old at the time.

We took many car trips growing up and each time we saw a car speeding past, we would sing out, “It’s the little old lady from Pasadena! Go granny, go granny, go granny go!” Pretending it was Grandma Anderson zooming by made us laugh and miss her.

Grandma was a good card player, and enjoyed playing Pitch. While living in a residential facility for seniors, she would excuse herself saying, “I’m going to go play cards with the old people at the senior center.” And, while she wasn’t much of a drinker, she had to have a beer when she ate pizza.

When my older brother was 6 and I was almost 3, Grandma Anderson came down to Louisiana to stay with us while my mom was staying with relatives preparing for the birth of my younger brother. Grandma never served a meal incomplete, and always served dessert at the end. Of course, we loved this and quickly became accustomed to this meal time staple. One day as my older brother was leaving for school, he asked her, “What’s for dessert tonight, Grandma?” Without missing a beat she replied, “Snake pie.” Now, we’d had snake before (this was rural Louisiana after all), but never as a dessert…. When the pie was served, we were pleased that it did not contain snake, or any other animal for that matter. Snake pie still lives on in our family and my older brother is usually the one to make it.

My favorite memory of Grandma Anderson was a weekend that I got to go stay with her. She was watching a soap opera and I was playing in the living room near her, when she says, “Can you believe she’d just go back to him, after all the grief he’s put her through?” I looked up at her and then at the television. No adult had ever addressed me in such, well, an adult way before. I immediately was pleased and then felt the pressure to live up to Grandma’s expectations of my conversational skills. I did my best and she smiled at me. We continued our conversation, and I sure did feel important. I realized later, as a young adult, that she had probably just been talking out loud to the T.V. as many people do, and I just happened to be there. But the way she made me feel in that experience was amazing. She didn’t dismiss me, she made me feel like my 9 year old voice was important.

It is so easy to talk ‘kid talk’ to a child, and I’m certainly no stranger to it. But, talking to children as real people can have an especially positive impact as well. Do you have some special memories of conversations with a loved one?

P.S. If you’d like the recipe for snake pie, I’d be happy to share. 🙂