Arthritis didn't slow Grammy's sticky fingers

Grammy taught her grandson lots of things, but Mom took issue with some of them.

By Jim Aylward, Special to the Times
Published May 29, 2007

I was 5 or 6 years old when my mother's mother came to live with us. To me, Ida Mae Chute Long was funny and loving, showing me things, explaining life.

My mother was not too thrilled with her.

Well, Grammy did peel oranges with a spoon and toss the peelings under her bed. When confronted, Grammy said, "The orange peel takes away the smell of the Sloane's Liniment!"

She used the liniment for her rheumatism.

In those early days, they didn't call it arthritis, nor, evidently, were they able to do much for it. Grammy had trouble getting up and getting down, so she would sit in a lawn chair to do her gardening and weeding.

Her grandson does the same thing today.

Like most kids of the day, I loved "little cars." The 5 & 10 Cent Store - Woolworth's - had tiny rubber cars that kids could make go "Vroom! Vroom!" all over the back yard.

My cousin, Paul, vroomed his little cars down a hole into a large mayonnaise bottle set on an angle, which he declared was an underground garage. I thought that was ingenious but, then, Paul was a year older than I was.

Sleight-of-hand buyer

One day Grammy and I walked, slowly, downtown to the stores and eventually we got to Woolworth's, where I lingered over the cars.

Grammy said, "You like those little cars?"

I said, "Yes!"

She said, "Well, we can't afford it this week."

I reluctantly walked on.

As we were strolling slowly toward home, she said, "Did you really, really like those little cars?"

I told her I really, really did, whereupon she pulled one of them out of her pocket and gave it to me.

"Don't tell your mother, " she said.

Soon I was out in the back yard under the apple tree, playing with my new car - vroom! vroom! My mother came out to see what I was doing, saw the toy and asked where I got it.

"Grammy gave it to me!" I said, proudly.

The next thing I heard were voices - loud voices. My mother's, then my grandmother's.

I didn't understand why my mother was so angry about my grandmother buying me a little car until I heard the explanation. It seems Grammy didn't actually buy the car.

She had large pockets in her dresses, and quick fingers in spite of her arthritis. And, somehow, my mother just knew it.

The conversation got louder until Grammy produced an amazing bit of philosophy on the subject. After all, she was older, supposedly wiser and was to be honored, she assumed.

Grammy offered the finest justification I had ever heard at my young age.

"Nell, " Grammy declared, "the store has plenty of them!"

My mother said, in response, "Oh, my God!"

Taking after Grammy

Nowadays, you see people in the supermarkets putting almost every item into the little basket at the top of the shopping cart, near the handle. I do that all the time because it's difficult for me to bend over and place items, especially heavy ones, down in the main part of the cart.

And so, while shopping recently I filled the cart. Then I remembered I needed laundry soap. I had to place it below the cart, where it slid along toward the back, under the basket. While checking out, I chatted with the cashier and, assuming that was it, I walked out to my car - forgetting to pay for the soap.

At home, when I was putting away the groceries, I clearly heard Grammy say, "Jimmie, the store has plenty of them!"

New Port Richey resident Jim Aylward was formerly a nationally syndicated columnist and radio host in New York City. Write him in care of LifeTimes, St. Petersburg Times, P.O. Box 1121, St. Petersburg, FL 33731.

[Last modified May 28, 2007, 13:33:23]