Callings, Bling and How to Stand Down a Bully

Since we're on the subject of my Grandma with the Chicago roots...I've been thinking about her storage places. She lived in a modest home on the flat plains of Illinois, but her closets were not modest. In her spare bedroom alone, she had a walk-in closet full of shoes, then a smaller one packed with her formal dresses. There was a large piece of furniture, a high-boy that seemed to stretch to the ceiling. Inside it was her costume jewelry. Drawers full of it. She would let us girls play dress-up with all that goody, with no fussing or checking to make sure we did it right. If that was her costume jewelry, I'm sure her "good" jewelry was palatial. I loved her like there was no tomorrow.

This all in contrast to my country-girl MawMaw. I remember her putting toothpicks through the holes in her ears. She usually wore a shift and could be found toddling on her rheumy hips, outside weeding her garden or planting something. She could put a stick in the ground and it would grow, I do believe. Luscious persimmons and warm, juicy tomatoes were the jewels in her crown. Her biscuits were as hard as hockey pucks and everyone just did the shortcut (rather than break their teeth) and put them in their coffee. Her house was always slightly greasy and there was no pleasing her (there really was...she just thought it might be proud to let on). I can't hear a train without fondly thinking of her, in her old rickety house by the tracks. I loved her like there was no tomorrow. 

Grandpas don't factor too much in the distilled sweetness of my childhood. They were side-trappings, astericks on the lives of my Grandmothers. How my sweet Daddy came from one of them is just proof that there is a good and merciful God. And he became possibly the best Grandfather God ever made. He and my Mama's life consisted of rotating from one grandchild to the next, for all their events, games, speeches, constantly dandling the babies on his lap. Jesus said to suffer the little children to come unto Him...Daddy assumed that was the 11th commandment and they all loved him for it. 

Daddy was the most fun and sweet of men, but I remember his advice to us girls, when there was a bully bothering one of us. He told us that if someone ever hit or attacked us, we were to punch them back. I said, "Daddy -- the principal will expel us if we hit someone, even if they hit us first." He said to defend ourselves, and to do it well (he put it more like, "You better beat the fire outa her!") Maybe that's why we never had to actually do it. He always taught us to be kind and generous, to think of others first and to serve the needs of the people around us. But there's something to be said for attitude. He also told us to be ladies off the basketball court but to be tigers on the court. 

My Grandmas and Daddy, they could have done webinars...