Smart Pills

I knew her best after she was already retired.  She was born in 1900, and I was born in 1962. Even in her seventies, she’d hook the boat up to the car, drive to Lake Allie, back the boat into the lake, and take me fishing to catch the evening meal.   

I would get to spend a whole week with her each summer.  I remember her throwing her head back to laugh and laugh and laugh. Now I catch myself doing the same thing.

I can honestly say I think about my grandmother every single day.  Thank goodness that she left me with so many wonderful stories to tell about her.  She passed along a legacy of humor that has continued to trickle down through the generations.  I’ve always seen it in my aunts and uncles, my brothers and sisters, and now in my own grown children.

Grandma took care of a little boy after she was retired.  They were walking in the backyard one day when by happenstance they came upon a pile of rabbit droppings.

“Grandma, what are these?” he asked curiously.

“Why, those are smart pills,” Grandma said in jest.

A while later, little Kent came in with a grimace on his face.

“Those aren’t smart pills,” he protested in disgust.  “Those are poop.”

 “See!” exclaimed Grandma. “You’re smarter already!”

The escapades of my Grandma!

I remember vividly the year that my brother-in-law, a jokester himself, gave Grandma a toy by Mattel named Slime for Mother’s Day.  Slime was a toy back in the mid-1970’s that was an ooey, gooey, gross greenish blob that would slip through your hands and was impossible to hold.  It had the consistency of, well, slime! 

Upon opening the gift, Grandma’s face lit up.  We could see the creative wheels turning in her mind.  Suddenly she announced, “I’m going to play a joke on Dorothy.” 

Dorothy was a lovely aunt who, without question, would have a neatly folded handkerchief with her.  

Upon Dorothy’s arrival, Grandma desperately asked everyone in the room, “Does anyone have a tissue?  I have to sneeze…”

Dorothy, of course, was right there with her beautiful hanky.

“Aa-CHOO!” faked Grandma.  And with that we saw a big blob of light green slime bouncing between her fingers and beneath the handkerchief. 

My aunt, with her eyes wide open and seemingly panicked that someone could actually sneeze that amount out at one time, appeared to run in circles. She was quite confused that no one else was assisting her with Grandma’s dilemma.  The rest of us, shocked that Grandma could still pull off a prank so well at her age, had tears running down our cheeks through the laughter.

And then there was the marriage of my 60-year-old aunt.  She had lost her first husband to cancer, then married Charlie.  My grandmother at that time was 88 and in a wheelchair, but that didn’t stop her antics!  Grandpa and she had brought a wooden toy shotgun to the wedding.

“We heard it was a shotgun wedding,” they would say.  Grandma got great fun out of poking guests with the gun during the gaieties. 

One of my favorite memories of Grandma was when she was nearing her nineties.  We were reminiscing and I pried her to tell me what it was like delivering a large brood.  “So you had eight children?” I asked.

My Grandpa, at that time probably in his nineties, chimed up saying, “Yup!  And it didn’t hurt at all!”

I remember Grandma scolding him from her wheelchair to this day.  With a grin on her face she teased, “You get over here right now and I’m going to kick you in the butt.”

So, to set the record straight, I’d like to apologize to all of my elementary school teachers.  In my own defense, I wasn’t trying to be naughty in school.  At such an impressionable age, I just idolized my grandmother and thought that’s how every happy person acted.   It was like I had my own personal Carol Burnett in my life that I had permission to emulate.  

Now I realize I could have used some smart pills of my own.