Grandmother

Tonight at dinner Jimmy said I needed a raise because I had been cooking such good meals this week. He said to Granny, "Granny, you did a good job teaching Joanne how to cook." Truth is Granny never taught me to cook. Grandmother ruled the kitchen.
Grandmother RULED everything!
I let Gina spend two weeks in Albany Ga. with my Aunt Doris and Grandmother, and made the fatal mistake of asking Grandmother to make sure Gina brushed her teeth after each meal. Gina had just gotten her braces and the dentist stressed the importance of brushing, and not eating anything hard or sticky. Poor Gina, Grandmother almost drove her crazy inspecting her mouth after each brushing as well as constantly checking to see what she was eating.Grandmother would say, "Gina, come on over here and let me look at your teeth." Whenever Grandmother addressed you it was with real authority. You felt fear run up your spine. Mama said when she was a child if Grandmother was angry with her she would say, "Dorothy, come over here and let me slap your jaws." I ask mama if she always obeyed. She said, "Yes." Grandmother took her job as teeth inspector very seriously. When Gina returned home she told me she was NEVER going to visit Grandmother again until she had her braces removed.
I remember when I was little how Grandmother always did a once over of me before I left for school or church. Our appearance was important to her. She once said to me that "we may be poor, but that's no excuse for being dirty." As children I know we aggravated the living day lights out of her. Many a time she would say, "You Jarrett's can't do anything without making a spectacle out of yourselves." I never understood what she was talking about. I thought she was the one who made a spectacle out of everything. She was so dramatic. I guess we Jarrett's must have picked up some of that tendency to make a drama out of the ordinary things in life.
When I was twelve Grandmother went to work as a private nurses aide. She worked the night shift at a ladies home here in town. White uniform, white shoes...she was in her element. Because she worked from 8pm to 8am she had to sleep during the day. I came home from school one day to find Grandmother waiting on me in the kitchen. She looked at me with those serious blue eyes and said, "Here's the cookbook, you have to cook supper from now on." That was my first cooking lesson.

GRANDMOTHER

Grandmother was a larger than life figure in our lives. She had a negative attitude toward children that stemmed from her own childhood, She use to say, somewhat cynically, that her mother, Mama Murphey, had a baby "every Saturday night." Poor Grandmother. Her father, Papa Murphy, was a rigid, over-bearing man who beat the tar out of his boys. In today's society he would have been arrested for the way he treated his children. So, Grandmother, never had any positive formation in family life. Considering what she had endured as a child it's a wonder she wasn't harder to live with. She was a conflicted personality. On the one hand she wanted to help and make things easier for mom and all of us, but on the other hand she was an enabler and resented the circumstances she found herself in, some of which she created herself.
In her heart I know she cared deeply for all of us,it just didn't always feel that way to me. Looking back I think perhaps ours was a competitive relationship. We were out numbered by males and I usually took their side. Mother was,by far, her favorite child and Grandmother never let her grow up. I was in the way. Even when mom was a mother herself she was still treated like a child by Grandmother. Mother, on the other hand, couldn't cut the apron strings and strike out on her own.
Grandmother did the best she could with what she had. Her father wouldn't allow her to go to school. He let her attend the first grade, but that was all. She was made to stay home and tend the babies plus whatever else her parents had her do. I don't recall her ever saying anything positive about her childhood. Her brothers were free to do whatever they wanted, but she was treated like a maid. Her own father would accuse her of immorality. One time even poured a "slop bucket" (what people used back then to use the bathroom in during the night) over her head calling her a whore. She was only sixteen. It's no wonder she married so young. She taught herself to read and write and desired to be a RN. She wanted so much to be educated, I think her inner spirit was very wounded and her self image extremely low. She was, even so, a proud, strong-willed human being who pressed on trying to improve herself and offer a better life to her children and grandchildren. Like I said, she did the best she could.
Grandmother was an unforgettable character. She was a drama queen to beat all drama queens! This made for some hilarious moments. For instance, if she got upset with anyone at the dinner table she would jump up, grab her plate, utensils, glass, whatever and in the trash can it would go!! She would then march to the living room and pout hoping someone would come and try to persuade her to return to dinner. No one ever did, of course. Instead, we would try to squelched the laughter that was bubbling up from all of us kids. Poor Grandmother, she never did get any sympathy from any of us. Grandaddy would say, " Now, Hollis, calm down." which she never did. If you were on the phone and she wanted to use it, she would pull the telephone wire out of the wall if you didn't move fast enough to please her. Needless to say, we didn't have many dishes, glasses, utensils and was often with out a phone.
All in all, it was never dull at home. We all used to hope and pray that her soap opera's went well everyday. I could tell the moment I walked in the door from school if her favorite TV characters had a bad day. Whooo...you had better tow the line or else. For Jerry it was usually "else."

Grandmother's Way

In 1957 we moved to Cobb Street. That was the house where you could put a ball in the kitchen and it would roll out of the front door. Grandmother use to hide goodies in a draw in her bedroom. Her and granddaddy's room was in the center of the house. To get to the kitchen you had to go through Grandmother's room. You could access half of the house through her bedroom. I think she had three doors in her room. Anyway, she and grandaddy had NO privacy whats-so- ever.
Their room had originally been the dining room. When you entered the house you walked right into the living room. The boy's room was off to the left. From the living room you walked through a french door into Grandmother's room. You passed from her room into a small narrow room (we used it for the dining room) and into the kitchen. The small narrow room was probably used as a place to store dishes etc. when the house was originally built. In it's day this was probably a very elegant home. The reason the house was slanted was because it had been moved to Cobb Street from somewhere else. Whoever moved it didn't seem to give a flip how they planted the house. Besides being slanted it was also in the parking lot of a grocery store. Our front yard was the parking lot of a Piggly Wiggly or something! Can you imagine how my teenage brothers felt when their friends came over? The side yard was an empty lot full of weeds and grass. We never owned a lawn mower so the grass only got taller. We had no backyard. The people behind us had chickens. You could stand on the back stoop and spit into the chicken yard. On the other side of the house was an ally... Ah,... but we did have those red clay cliffs that brought so much fun for me and Bobby. I smoked my first cigarette there. I was 11 years old.
As I said earlier, Grandmother hid cookies and stuff in her bedroom drawer.I never knew about this cache so I didn't know what I had been missing. But Larry and Jerry knew about it. I have no idea how they knew but, Jerry caught hell one day when Grandmother discovered her bag of cookies empty.Oh,..there may have been a few cookies left ,and some crumbs.
I was sitting in the living room when I heard this god awful sound. Grandmother!! The empty bag of cookies!! Lord help who ate them!
Larry blamed Jerry. Jerry blamed Larry. Grandmother went into a tail spin. She threw the bag on the floor, started jumping up and down on it totally destroying whatever was left in the bag. She yelled; she screamed, and went absolutely to pieces. She flung herself on her bed and starting crying. It was then that she said her favorite and famous line, "Lay the crucifix on me.I've swallowed my tongue. Oh, Lord, help me, I've swallowed my tongue. Lay the crucifix on me and call the priest."
Really..... what do you do in a situation like that? We didn't know..... so we did what we usually did. We laughed. Of course, that only made things worse. Poor grandaddy..he kept saying ,"Now, Hollis, calm down, For god sakes, calm down!"
This was not the first time we had heard Grandmother say she was swallowing her tongue. I didn't have a clue what she meant, but I knew it was serious.
To this day I am not really sure who ate the cookies. I have asked both brothers over the years, and they both say the other one ate them. One said he only had a few and the other brother ate the rest. I don't know; I don't care, but Grandmother was fit to be tied that day, and I have a fond and funny memory of the way she was.

.......You Jarrett's...I hate'cha!

So, Grandmother, I ALWAYS called her Grandmother because she just wasn't the type of grandmother who you could call Granny or Nana or Grams. Oh,no. She was definitely Grandmother with a capital G. I believe the TV media could have easily made a fortune making a sitcom about our Grandmother. Hollis was her name. She always hated her name but got mad every time I had a baby and didn't name it Hollis.
Mom told me a story that is the epitome of how Grandmother thought and lived. Mom said she came home from school one day and Grandmother was sitting on the sofa with a sad, serious face.I need to tell you that Grandmother was very, very dramatic. Kind of like a chubby, southern Betty Davis ( Betty Davis was a Hollywood actress popular in the 40's. She played in a movie in the 60" or 70"s called Baby Jane for those who might have seen it.) Anyway, Grandmother was all sad and serious on this particular day. This happened in 1935 so mom was about 10 yrs. old. Grandmother said, "Dorothy, come here. I have something to tell you." Mom was a little frightened, but she sat down next to Grandmother and said, "What is it mama? Are you alright?" Grandmother stated crying and proceeded to tell mom that she was dying. She had cancer. For a long time after that mom waited for Grandmother to die. She didn't. It seems Grandmother had been listening to the radio and heard a list of symptoms for cancer. She decided she had it. That was all there was to it! Can you image? Well, Grandmother didn't die of cancer or anything else but old age. However, as long as I can remember she was having heart attacks at least once a year. In and out of the hospital she went. Her doctor even gave her Demerol, a powerful pain reliever! She bugged him to death for it. She was hard to resist. What Grandmother had was a very active imagination and flair for the dramatic. My brothers, especially Jerry, would aggravate her death. She blamed everything on Jerry because he just wouldn't shut up. She really couldn't stand him. I can still see her getting in his face. She would be all red faced and wild eyed. She would get about 2 inches from Jerry's face and saying "OOH you Jarrett's! I hate'cha I just Hate'cha!" This would make Jerry laugh like crazy which in turn made her furious and round and round they would go. Years after we had all grown up and moved out on our own she was in the hospital having one of her heart attacks. Jerry came to visit her because Grandmother had convinced grandaddy and mom that this time she really was dying. Jerry walks into the hospital room looks at poor Grandmother lying there so pathetic and says, "Well, Grandmother, I hear you're dying." No sympathy. Just the typical Jerry reaction to her. Of course he said it tongue-in-cheek. She didn't say it but I am sure she was thinking"...You Jarrett's, I hate'cha!"