Patch Blog: Country Gal/City Woman: 'Stuff I Learned While Being Potty-Trained'

One recent Saturday my 87-year-old neighbor Lurline Klein and I dropped by the I-Hop on Baldwin Avenue on our way home from her hair appointment with Mary (the Nervous Nellie one) at Yvonne's on First Avenue. 

Over her Crepe with Chicken filling and my French Onion Roast Beef with mashed potatoes and whole kernel corn (yes, our recommendations!) we discussed, pseudo-seriously the role that Grandma's play in far-flung families these days. 

She has close to 30 grandkids including "greats," and I have a Duke's Mixture of 10, so I have pretty much listened to suggestions she has made over the years.  And, then proceeded with caution...(that latter is probably the best piece of advice I've learned over the years from listening to Dr. Spock, Dr.Drew and "Dr." Lur).

My first, last and only experience with my own real live "Grandma" was a short one like four years (1925-1929) hardly remembered except for the occasional "flashback" of gathering warm eggs out of a warm nest, that measles story you read about not that long ago, and Grandma Rhoda's admonitional lessons on how to "side-step" stuff that looked like pretty little white pebbles, when one is slightly myopic, scattered here and there around the barnyard and best not be used for "Marbles" at this stage.

One could say that I have had to learn how to "Grandma" my grandkids "on the fly," "by the seat of my Mervyn's pants" (there was a Mervyn's before there was a Kohl's), "common sense or natural instinct" ...but, perhaps best of all, by a slight remembrance of what it felt like to be the "baby of the family" with ELEVEN siblings at the ready to keep me in line when I got "out of hand."  Which, of course, was a fulltime job for my Grandma-substitutes worth their proverbial salt, and when their "abdication" or "running away from home" was out of the question, Mom's orders.

Most Grandma's I know stay busy with golfing, spring cleaning, running marathons or for political office, taking flying lessons at the El Monte Airport (or lunching there), hunting and fishing, raising show dogs, reupholstering furniture, enrolling at the nearest Curves or "Learn How to be a Clown" school, giving up smoking but I try not to bother them too much, schoolmarming, and the newest, Skyping, thereby "raising the bar" for those of us who merely type or watch Waste Management pick up Refuse on a Friday morning.

Not to be minimized, I am seriously thinking of staking a claim to "The Oldest Blogger Alive" title.  Perhaps to be added later when competition begins to stiffen:  "Who Happens to be a Grandma."

There is a 87-year-old Blogger I've read about on another patch.com site, but he doesn't count as he is a former paid newspaperman, has his own boat, has written  books and poems, seems to know what he is talking about and he cooks...(I can see a definite "bias" forming already).   

Those siblings did such a good job in raising me up to where I am today, that I thought to myself: "These things/principles that I must have learned while at the mercy of those 11 siblings telling me "do it right now or I am telling Mom/Dad!"  these Directives I must share with my 10 "all great" grandkids, with some degree of that same mercy, humor, understanding, gratitude and a whole lot of love for good measure."

Rather high-faluting language, I agree, but nevertheless, it is something most every Grandma wants to get around to some day, right?  Who, better than a seasoned Grandma, can give sage advice, tactfully "backing off" if it looks like it may not have been so "sage" after all? 

When printed on 20-pound acid-proof paper, This Blog, along with countless others, was originally meant to be placed in a tightly-sealed Time Capsule, or a duct-taped cardboard box, when I felt that I had written just enough historical information to give those future generations a glimpse back to that so-primitive year, 2011. 

About that "Time Capsule" idea?  The metal tubing seemed a tad more secure than a duct-taped cardboard box when placed in the ground.  I just have to remember to leave a written note or a hand-drawn map for my Plan to work.  It's on my "To Do List".

So, doing what every Grandma should do, I wrote Grandma's Letter and am storing it for the moment in the duct-taped cardboard box marked "Stuff 'n Such" shoved under the bed, waiting for dark of night when I can sneak out to dig, alongside the roots of my new Tangerine Tree, a 2'x2' hole for a more permanent burial.  (It is here that I stop and tell you that all of the above is just "plain old malarky," a phrase I heard many a time at 210 Birch, everyone being half-Irish.)  In the lofty literary world, this is actually just called "Malarky".  On my honor I did write Grandma's Letter which includes the Directives.

However, instead of waiting four score and nine years, as of today I am moving up the First Reading of "Grandma's Letter" once planned to be read long after "my dust" had settled.  That's because one of my grandsons will soon be leaving us to attend Taft, a boarding school in Watertown, Connecticut, a dream he has harbored since he was about eight years old.

Now, it's a great school, and Cole will have the "year of a lifetime," but he will be missed by his friends and family and, lest he not know it yet, his Grandma. (This is the kid who, when he was an adorable three-year-old, chuckled with great delight as he playfully swatted my posterior as we walked side by side...a memory I chuckle over as I write this...sweet.)

So, Cole, as you spread your wings and fly off to the East Coast with your treasured hockey stick, meal ticket in hand and a suitcase full of school necessities and new underwear, this is what I was aiming to be read by YOUR grandchildren in the year 2100 with minor changes.

Coley, maybe, just maybe, there are one or two Directives (in CAPS) that will help you through your first year at Taft, away from home and family for a short time, becoming the person you, and only you, are meant to be.   The few words in CAPS are "keys" that will go a long ways to unlocking any "locked boxes" you encounter in your young life...Your "fey and part-Irish" Grandma just knows these things.  Trust me on this...

Without further adieu, here is "Grandma's Letter," a piece of paper with some simple words typed upon it, along with a piece of your Grandma's heart.

P.S. Cole:  "Buckle Up" as you take the Taft-bound transition turn-off on your very own "yellow brick road"...may it be as magical as you want it to be!)  

GRANDMA'S LETTER

Hi Kids...

As of today's date,I am the "last one standing/sitting" member of my branch of Scotland/Ireland's Cranston Family.  Count it all "TRUTHFUL," what is written, as that is just expected of every family member. No sugar coating, just the truth.

"Certain Principles" were handed down, along with Lincoln Logs, J.C.Penneys' clothes and one really used balloon-tired bicycle, from my full-siblings known as Trudy, Leona, Rhoda, Addie, Bennie, "Dutch" (George Jr.), Perle and Kenneth and half-siblings Earl, Jesse and Archie, your Aunts and Uncles, genealogically speaking.  There was first among us baby Aletha Fay who came to the FAMILY on May 7, 1904, took a quick look, turned around and went HOME again.

Your Aunt Addie and the four youngest boys were the ones still in residence at 210 Birch when my unexpected arrival (you've heard about this several times already) took place that nice Spring Day in 1925.  Your Grandma's birth had to have been greeted with mixed reviews....No. 13?

In those days (and yes, there were newspapers) when kids were treasured for the farmhands they would eventually become, for a family now living in town, No. 13 was a really big undertaking, even if the "little tyke" was about the cutest, baldest little charmer one would ever want to diaper.

And, diaper those five-kids-under-the-age of 16 did! (Well, your Uncle Bennie was the 16-year-old, and I doubt that he put "the kid" and her COMFORT ahead of a baseball game on any Sunday afternoon, but I do have a picture of my big brother carrying me, "The Baby of the Family," in a frilly dress and bonnet to match, as if I was a prized baseball bat!

(You should know that in a few years he, along with his three younger brothers, would don a soldier or sailor's uniform during World War II, head for lands so far away and come back with several battle-earned medals...to continue his LOVE for baseball by announcing games at the ballpark a block from where he lived in Marne.)

Was it the siblings' WARM hands as they CAREFULLY pinned my diapers (this was way before Huggies, you understand) or...the GENTLE rubbing of their noses against my nose when I probably SMILED so flirtatiously back at them, or...the PATIENCE each exhibited as they PROUDLY "brought up" a good burp or two after a feeding, something your Great-Grandma Mayme said they "had" to do after each feeding...was this ritual the beginning of that warm mushy feeling of LOVE, bringing COMFORT and not colic?   Never a doubt. 

Kids, amongst all the people who have entered and exited my life, there are two who, for entirely different reasons, simply stand out and you need to hear about them; otherwise, there is no point to this Letter at all because it is from these two people I learned some of the most important lessons of my life...

She first came into my life because of our mutual love for bowling.  The dearest of friends, she was known from Pink's in Los Angeles to Soup Plantation near her home as Betty Hatcher, and you will see more pictures of her in my Windows Gallery.  She was funny, daring, captivating, loved the casino slots, country music, line dancing and she was The Leader of Our Pack, constantly teasing your Grandma about her Iowa roots (and I loved it when she attempted to show others how I milked cows as a kid, and I had not the heart to tell her I tried it once and left it to the real farm girls after that), went "ballistic" picking up a difficult spare and more so on a strike as we bowled together before she was felled by the Big C. 

We connected late in life, but it was as if we had known each other forever, "chums" of the first order. I want a FRIEND like that for each of you. 

Time came to pass when this dear soul became bedridden.  Those of us who could care for her needs did so, this Betty No. 1, who, always so TENDERLY, gave COMFORT to others.  What my siblings did for me so long ago, I was BLESSED and PRIVILEGED to do for Betty. 

At the age of 72, she still possessed a wrinkle-free, smoothly perfect milk chocolate-toned skin and, to boot, a bountiful supply of "nappy" hair, neatly trimmed short.  When we parted company at the end of the day, it was with a gentle rubbing of my knuckles over her locks for "good luck," as she nodded and beamed that smile of hers.  

She had this endearing habit of pointing thumbs upward when things were going in either direction, up or down, for VICTORY!  At times we playfully chided each other by saying "I am more COLOR BLIND than you..." a little like the Kids of the Depression Days saying, "We were so poor that..."  In jest one day, I remarked to her that my signs-of-aging "liver marks" were drawing us ever closer in color.   Betty paused a full minute and then, funny enough, her thumb and my thumb went up in unison.  I just know she quietly snorted as she conceded that "win" to me.

Betty Hatcher loved USC, the Lakers, and my family.  We are forever sisters, or as she would say "Sistas."

The second one is your Uncle Ben whose middle name should have been INTEGRITY rather than Morton.  He was a man of FAITH, and it was pure JOY for him and his younger brother's children, when he joined them around the kitchen table, usually next to my high chair, where he saw that I cleaned my plate, finished that glass of cold milk but only after I clasped my hands together while he said the BLESSING and COMPLIMENTED his sister-in-law Mayme on another fine meal. 

I heard his DEVOTIONAL words of PRAISE and GRACE, little UNDERSTANDING why this always had to precede any meal I was impatiently waiting to dig into with fingers and fork. It was time for the family to stop all fidgeting at the table when Uncle Ben bent his gray head in prayer, and that included me.   These are things one notices when one is INQUISITIVE and one "peeks." 

If you ever want to know who your Uncle Ben looked like, look up the famous painting "The Old Man in Prayer."  Looking at that "Old Man" will be like looking at your Uncle Ben, who loved my reading the Funny Papers to him, and that is the last ACT OF KINDNESS I could do for him one Saturday night at the Atlantic Hospital in 1935.

Kids, those less-than-subtle messages I am sending to you (the CAPS) are just a few of the "Directives" passed along to me to pass along to you.  Of course, there are more to SHARE, but I will leave that to you to discover on your own because that is where the real learning begins.

Just waiting for you to find are words like COMPASSION, CHARITY, FORGIVE, FORGET, CENTERED,  REVERENCE, SERVICE-ABOVE-SELF, ALTRUISM, REACH-OUT-AND-TOUCH, CONTRIBUTE: I know Webster's Dictionary will offer up a whole lot more, and if Yahoo.com is still in business, great.  Can't have too many Search Engines, but always remember, the most important one is YOU! 

Clothes and cars may change from year to year, but words like these will never "go out of style".  Used wisely, they will give you an ABUNDANT LIFE and a PEACE that passes all understanding.  Trust me on that one, too! 

So, Cole, and all other Grandkids eventually reading this, this is my LEGACY to you...A few yellowed-with-age Blogs and an 8-1/2" by 11" piece of paper with some carefully-typed and spell-checked words that will, hopefully, help you get on with your beautiful lives.  It may be that the most important words for you in this Letter have yet to be capped.  Let that SEARCH be a lesson and an adventure as it has been for me.  

From my HUMBLE HEART to yours,

Grandma (and Sadie sends her puppy love)