[Emmie9999]

When I was a child, a weekly outing was bringing Grandma to the grocery store. She was a lovely woman, from County Kerry, and always dressed in her "good" clothes to go out. She had horrible eyesight; even though she had cataract surgery and wore contacts, she needed glasses with the huge bulge in the middle. (She was one of the first and the oldest person in Bergen County, NJ to have the surgery, her doctor still calls her the bravest person he ever met.) Shopping with her took HOURS. As I hit my teen years, it became irritating to hang around while she examined "every" can of peaches.

One shopping day, I was assigned to bring her to the car when she was done, while my mother finished up. it had been an especially trying day for my 14 year old self, as she had needed me to help her choose three "perfect" bananas. "One must be a teeny bit green, Mary Ellen, I won't need it until Friday...no, that is TOO green...bring that one closer..." Finally, we were on our way out of the door and across the parking lot.

The car was parked far away, and uphill from the store. It was cold. I was trying to hurry us, but Grandma could only go so fast. She was about 82 at the time, and stooped with osteoporosis, in her "good" shoes with the high heels. I was just walking straight ahead, when I heard her call "stop, I need you."

I looked back, and she motioned to me. Her skirt looked...funny. I walked to the cart handle, and she said "My skirt is slipping." She grabbed my hand and pulled it to her waist: "HERE". I held the cart while she wriggled. We took a few steps forward, and it slid down. "Thank Jesus I wore my black slip" she said. She pulled it up. "I had to pin it to go out. The button was loose. Pin it here, dear."

I grabbed the pin, and tried to put it into place, but my hands were not strong enough to close it. I realized my grandmother was standing in the middle of a parking lot, in the winter wind, with her skirt hem around her ankles and her....hips exposed to the wind through her slip.

"You poor child...your hands are too young, and mine are too old." she said. She pulled the skirt up, and took a few steps with one hand on it, and one on the cart, but she could not keep her balance. Now we are halfway across the parking lot, and going back is as bad as going forward. No, she does not want to go back. Here, hold the waistband here, let's try again...no, now the SLIP is sliding!

Together, we gathered the waistband of her skirt against the waistband of her slip, and held them against her hip. I could not think anymore...we are in a traffic lane, cars are swerving....I looked at her, and getting teary I said "Grandma, what are we going to do?"

Grandma leaned close to me, with a grin on her face and said "We are going to have to make a run for it! Come on!"

And together, giggling the whole way, fabric slipping from our fingers, we "ran" (trotted) up the slight hill to the car. She leaned on the door as I opened the lock, and told me "look out for odd men staring at me" as she shimmied her skirt up her hips and then got in the car. I climbed in after her, laughing with her so hard we almost burst. "Don't tell your mother I had to pin my underwear, now."

That spring, when I was buying new school clothes, my mother was wary of my choice of mini skirts. My grandmother winked at me and told my mother "Oh, for Heaven's sake, it's not as though she is showing her rear end to the whole world in public like SOME people might." We burst into giggles while my mother tried to figure out what was so funny.

I have more stories about her, but this one always makes me laugh out loud. Does anyone else have a story to share?

Emmie

[Tigratrus]

I think I've mentioned before that I was born in Bergen county NJ? In Ridgewood Valley Hospital to be precise, and lived in Saddle River until shortly before my junior year of High School. Always throws me for a loop when I hear about someone else from the same area.

Most of my Grandma stories have to do with the fact that my grandmother,
while a wonderful woman, was quite old school, and not inclined to put up with much at the dinner table. She was well known for correcting inappropriate reaching across the table with a whack to the back of the hand with a HEAVY silver serving spoon.

One year though, we had a friend of the family (about the age of my mother/aunts/uncles)bring her boyfriend to dinner. He was a very nice french gentleman, archetypally named Pierre. One of my eldest cousins introduced the arcane art of spoon hanging. Have you ever experienced this fad? It works best with actual silver:

First you have to clean off the area that you intend to use to hang the spoon. Then polish the spoon by blowing on it and cleaning it off on your clothing. The hang the spoon from your protuberance of choice. The default choice (and the perennial classic) for beginners is the nose. You lean your head back just *slightly* and place the center of the bowl of the spoon on your nose, then slow let it go. And if you've done it right, it'll just dangle there for quite an amazingly long time. You can even conduct conversations while practicing.


So here's this very polite, reserved frenchman who spoke enough english to get by but not much more, surrounded by an entire family of 15-20 giggling people sitting at a huge mahogany table, in a very proper area of town, hanging spoons from various parts of their faces while the matriarch sitting at the foot of the table and observed all this frivolity with a stern eye. And a shiny silver spoon hanging squarely from her nose.

I think we traumatized the poor man...

As I recall, the highlight of the evening was the family portrait of everyone with spoons a dangle, my cousin being the acknowledged champion with one held tightly in each eye (handles sticking straight out to the sides), one on the back of each ear AND the obligatory nose decoration gently swinging.


Heh. I wonder if I still have the picture somewhere?

James

[athen661]

My grandmother is quite stuffy. She means well but she's just....mean. My grandpa (on my mother's side, my grandma is my father's mother), OTOH, taught me to play craps, yes, craps. He used to bring a big jar of change and divvy it out between the two of us, then he and I would play craps on my mom's kitchen floor (her linoleum came about 4 inches up on the wall) it was perfect for craps. Apparently I'm just enjoying the heck out of the word "craps" today.

He lived through the depression and saw no reason to spend lots of money on clothes so he bought his pants at K-mart. Once I got my license I was nominated to ferry grandpa to the store. He'd be pushing his cart and I'd toddle off to look at makeup or whatever, and when he was ready to go, he'd wander through the store yelling "Athen, Athen" in his very thick Arkansas accent. Then it was time to go to the grocery store, where he'd tell the checker some off color joke. My grandpa is definitely a character, my mom and aunt took him to the indian casino for his 83rd birthday last month and he zoomed around with his walker. Apparently he buys his clothes at Kmart so he can spend his money on important things like gambling.....

[GardenOfDarwin]

Oh, I wish I had a funny Grandma story.

The best I can do is to conjure up the image of my prototypically New York native, Miami Beach transplant, pear-shaped step-Grandma lying prostrate on her grand belly next to the glimmering pool in her 1970's Florida condo complex adorned by horizontal lounge chair strap marks across her large posterior (the only part of her being fully covered was her head which was squeezed into one of those swimming caps covered with suction cups and daisies) as she belted out 'High Hopes' by Frank Sinatra (at the top of her New York- accented-not-so-good-singing voice) - you know the one about the ant moving the rubber tree plant? That one.

Sigh...those were the days.

Susan

[Emmie9999]

The scene itself is incredible, I can just picture it! (I think, at one time, I had that same bathing cap! )

James, I do remember now that you are also a Bergen County native. Do you remember Cresskill? Bordered by Tenafly, Dumont, Demarest and Alpine, and not too far from Englewood and the lovely city of Hackensack.

I barely remember my paternal grandma, but I know that when she came to visit, I was moved out of my bedroom and in with my brothers. I would insist it was "MY" room, because I was older and a GIRL, and I HAD to have my OWN room. I was all of 4 at the time, and I still have a hard time sharing with my little bros.

The year before she passed away, my grandmother needed new dresses. She was stooped over with osteoporosis, and found going to stores difficult. My mother and I went to Lord and Taylor and picked out at least a dozen dresses for her, and my mother explained the situation to the sales clerk. She graciously gave us an extended return date so we could bring them home for Grandma to try on. (BTW, the L&T was in the same shopping mall where the IKEA Paramus is now located!)

This was 1984, the year of dropped waist shirt dresses. Grandma put on a dress with 2 inch wide magenta and grey stripes; the skirt was pleated, the waistband was wide and horizontal stripes, whille the rest was vertical. I could not help but giggle...she looked like a psychedelic candy cane. (It was one of the color combos that...jiggled.) She got very aggrivated with me, and then saw herself in the mirror, and started laughing. "Josie, come get this off of me, if I wear it to Mass, Father Charles will choke on the altar!"

I think of my grandmother a lot, but especially now. She was a wonderful cook, and I remember her praising me to the skies when I made Easter dessert one year. It was a "daffodil cake", a chiffon cake where you marbled white batter (with all egg whites) and yellow batter (with the yolks and a little lemon). I was about 10. There were sections where I had not marbled, or mixed too much, and big air holes. For months afterwards, she pulled me to her after Mass and told her friends "this is my granddaughter, the baker. She is so smart, she figured out this cake all by herself!"