Someone asked the question as to what one remembers about their grandmother. My dad’s mom and dad lived next to us when I grew up. My granddad died when I was seven and I loved him dearly. But grandmother was special as well.

She could do anything. Sew clothes, make butter from cow’s milk she squeezed out herself. She chopped off chicken’s heads and made fried chicken or chicken n dumplings, but my favorite thing was that gritty dry version of chocolate fudge with pecans. She had a toaster in which I would toast almost a half loaf of bread on Saturday mornings after spending the night and drank coffee.

When I was young houses didn’t have running water. We were fortunate to have electricity by the time I came along. Time moved right along back then. Grandmother cooked on a wood stove in my first remembrances until the wonder appliance in the form of a gas stove came into being. She had an old Fridgedaire refrigerator. We had the same one.

After granddad died she had a well put down and she had a pump put on it with a single spigot on the sink inside. Running water. Wow. Still no bathroom facilities. It was still an outhouse. In her case, she had a two-holer. We only had a one-holer. Grandmother was cutting edge. She was the first with a TV. It was an RCA that sat on a swivel pedestal. I loved going to her house to watch Romper Room, Captain Kangeroo and cartoons.

I would sit some nights after she’d skimmed the fat off the milk and sat with it in a gallon jug bouncing it on her knee till it turned to butter. She’d pour it into a wood mold that would create a flower in on the top of the butter after it had hardened and she took the top off.

That old house had a lot of memories. It’s not far from being a total memory now. My dad’s bedroom was a small enclosed part of what appeared to have once been part of the back porch. It was barely big enough for a bed and small dresser. I slept there many times.

I’d stay with her on Saturday nights, too. She was a Sunday School teacher and I’d watch Saturday Night At The Movies on TV while she sat in her chair and studied her lesson until she fell asleep. I’d watch that old TV till the National Anthem finished playing and the station signed off for the night.

My grandmother eventually had a man. she later married, refurbish the old house we lived in and moved there after my dad built us a new house with running water, a bath tub and toilet. We’d made the big time then.

Jamie Lamm was a good man to my grandmother. They grew much older together. He passed away from Alzheimer’s and two weeks or so later she passed on from heart failure. She was near eighty years old.

My last time seeing her was at the hospital a few days before she passed, but I did see her the week Jamie died. I looked at her and asked her how she felt. She said she was tired. I think she was ready to go. There are not many women like her any more.