When Grandma Says Duh

Sunday dinner after church was always a special time for us.  It meant that we got to walk across the street, from the little church and into the most wonderful little house.  The house with the three little stairs that led into a wonderful spacious living room with burnt orange carpet and a little coffee table with items we should not touch.  Oh, and in the other room, smell that delicious food.  That food had been prepared the evening before and had been slow cooking the whole time we had been at church.  The smell of pot roast and new potatoes filled the air.  Oh, look, what’s that in the corner?  See it, over there, with the damp towel draped over it.  Yes, it’s homemade yeast rolls.  Do you have any of your strawberry preserves, a voice called from the back room?  We were all there, my mom, brother, sister and I.  It was Sunday dinner and granny had prepared the meal.  We would set the table and argue over who would say the prayer.  Then, granddad after we had all stuffed ourselves silly, granddad would get out his apron and drape it over his 5’5” inch tall frame and fat little belly and stand at the sink washing dishes while one of us dried.  We dried those dishes at the sink; overlooking the backyard and the birdfeeder that granny hung over the carport.  Dinner dishes dried, we imagined what could be waiting for dessert.  Would it be the peach cobbler, the lemon squares, the Texas brownies, or the dreaded persimmon pudding.  No, not persimmon pudding.  No kids want persimmon pudding!  That brown kind of oatmeal looking, maybe it’s a fruit, but you warm it up and eat it in the Fall, oh, please not that stuff.  But just maybe, she would make her famous sugar cookies, so thick and fat and rolled in sugar.  I know, how about the peanut butter fudge?  Yes, Yes, she’s got the pan out.  It’s the old metal pan, with the bent handle and her wooden spoon.  Granny would stir and stir, that arm flapping and flapping in the air and one foot pumping, like she was going to run.  And in the end, she’d take a spoon and put a drop of that liquid perfection in a bowl of cold water and if that liquid turned into a ball, it was time to pour the fudge.  We waited, holding our breath, our eyes fixated on that little ball of liquid, like a science experiment for N.A.S.A.  When we saw that ball, we knew fudge was about to land on the plate and we could lick the pan!  Yes, Perfection.  And to end a perfect Sunday, we’d all gather in the living room and listen to the various stories my grandparents had to tell about the “old” days.  My grandmother taught me so much about life.  My first trip to the library was with my grandmother.  I walked hand in hand to church with my grandmother.  I learned how to set a table and so many other life lessons.  At the end of so many of our own little stories, my grandmother would simply say, “have mercy”.

Have Mercy, that’s what my grandmother would say.  But what happens, when Grandma says “Duh”?  Some of the grandmothers that I see today are very different than the grandmothers that I saw when I was growing up.  This has caused me to wonder, who are the teachers of the lessons of the past?  When I used to teach diversity classes, we would ask our students, who or what do you identify yourself as?  Today, I venture to guess that many grandmothers do not self identify as a grandmother.  When grandma is still in the club or living with her boyfriend, what is a child to think?  When Grandma and Mom are only separated by a few years in age, what is the image that we are displaying to our children? 

Is there room in our society for Grandma to take on the role of teacher and sharer of wisdom?  My grandmother and many women of that generation weren’t having plastic surgery at 70 and getting waxed at 75.    What, did you say your granny can drop it like it’s hot?  Lawd have Mercy! 

I am sure my grandmother and her friends had their vices, but perhaps they weren’t so public.  Oh, I do remember my grandmother singing “Once, Twice, Three times a lady,” loudly in a department store one day.  Does that count as bad behavior? 

I think that perhaps I have just seen too many children without enough role models lately.  Yes, there are some spectacular grandmothers out there and I do know many of them.  My concern is for those who are growing up removed from the nuclear family, without the grandparents of yesteryear.

It’s interesting; my generation were children that were termed the latchkey kids. Many of my friends came home to an empty home after school, the result of the duo income household.  The next generation, saw the disappearance of the nuclear family.  As jobs took families further and further away from their place of origin, no longer did grandparents and children live within close proximity of each other.  The current generation I believe is the generation of video chat.  Even conversations with grandma happen via Skype and Facebook. 

Yes, my granny had plastic fruit and a plastic rug that we turned over every Sunday afternoon and walked barefoot on the prickly part, screaming in delight.  Granny sang in the church choir and cooked Sunday dinner.  She believed that for every church program we should learn a recitation and if we didn’t know our lines, she’d simply clasp her hands together, shake her head and say, Mercy!

What would have happened if Granny would have said, Duh?