My Granny

I wrote a letter to my Grandma Dorothy last night. She lives in Nebraska, just a stone's throw from where my parents live. She's one of the best cooks in the whole world and I think it was her chicken-noodle-on-top-of-a-mound of mashed-potatoes concoction that was responsible for twenty of the extra pounds I carried around during my teenage years. Well, there was the fried chicken, the roast beef and gravy, the homemade bread, and the cinnamon rolls, sour cream raisin pies, and peanut butter ice cream desserts too. All of those may have contributed something. Or perhaps it was simply my inability to put the dang fork down, I can't be certain. I used to eat a lot.

Anyway, Grandma has written me a letter once a week since the day I left for college at the U of Nebraska in Lincoln. That's a long time. Stacks and stacks of letters. Sometimes she tells me how much rain is in the rain gauge after the storms the night before. Sometimes she tells me about a wayward cow that managed to escape through the barbed wire fence and then set up camp on the dirt road. Sometimes she tells me stories about the things my cousins and their families are doing. Somebody has to keep us up to date on each other and Grandma has done a wonderful job facilitating. I've saved every letter she has ever written me. I'll go back and read them someday. I write back as often as I can, but that ends up being about once every two months. Even so, Grandma keeps her letters coming. It's rare to continually receive something without giving much of anything in return.

I laugh each time I think of some of Grandma's sayings. I'm sure your granny has some good ones too. Like..."Nossir, I don't know him from Adam." "I'd rather sit around and watch the paint peel." "It rained like a cow peeing on a flat rock." And sometimes when she eats something and it "goes down the wrong tube" she finishes with "Oooh! 'Bout puked!" Nothing a Tums or two can't cure though. Ahhh, she makes me laugh.