There is a spider in my ear

Is what I told my Maternal Grandmother when I was about 4 years old. She leaned down and pulled on my ear to see better and looked in my ear. Just then my ear infection burst. It was my ear infection that caused me to think I had a spider in my ear.

The first memory I have of being at my maternal grandmother’s house was in the winter, either at Christmas or Thanksgiving. It had to be then because there was a big pile of coats and scarves on the bed. In our house if we went to Dad’s mom at Thanksgiving we went to Mom’s mom at Christmas. The next year was reversed. I was at the foot of the bed playing with a doll. The doll was as tall as me. She had dark hair. Someone else got that doll that year.

One joke us kids had was that we actually had to go over a river and through the woods to our grandmother’s house.  Our maternal grandmother was green before green was cool. This was way back in the 50’s. She planted trees every year. That is where we got our Christmas tree. Dad would take one of us kids and go find a tree and cut it down and we would take that tree home and set it up.

When you walk in the front door to your immediate left is the dining room. Farther left was the living room. To your right in the wall were two doors leading to the bedrooms. Between the doors on the wall was the wooden telephone. It still had the old fashioned fastenings. Yep, you had to take a hold of the metal and wind it up so you could make a call.

Across the room in front of you as you enter the front door, was the door to the kitchen. There was about three steps down to get to the kitchen floor. Immediately in front of you was the back door and turning to your left was the kitchen. You had to walk all the way down the kitchen to get to the bathroom. The kitchen was added after the house was built. Standing there to your left was a counter and above the counter was the cupboards. You opened the doors and there were the dishes. The really neat thing for us kids was opening the doors from the dining room side at the same time as the kitchen side doors were opened. You could see into the dining room or kitchen, really neat.

Grandmother had a stereoscope that kept us kids entertained for hours. When we were tired with that, then there was tons of Look and Life. Then there were piles of National Geographic. Then there was the Carrom board with all the games to be played. We were very quiet because that is the way that Grandmother preferred it. Children were seen but not heard. Mom had us trained.

At Christmas grandmother made cookies and fudge. There were all kinds of cookies, single cookies and sandwich cookies. She made the kind of cookies that you need a cookie press for. She made Pfeffernuesse. She also made jellies and jams. I remember the jar had paraffin on top and over that was a piece of wax paper fastened to the jar with a rubber band. She had ribbon candy and filled hard candy and just hard candy.

I remember her wearing a pair of Khaki pants tan colored. She wore her white hair short (it was curly). She wore a short sleeved white blouse with a Peter Pan collar. She may have worn other clothing but this is what I remember her wearing. She had a rock and gem collection. She found all the rocks in her collection.

When she got sick in the 60’s mom’s brother made an addition to the house. Where the bedrooms used to be is where the addition went. First came the bedrooms down a long hall and at the end of the hall was the kitchen and living room for my uncle and his wife and kids. The new addition was very modern. The old house exterior was made entirely from rocks with mortar in between.

The last time I saw my grandmother was in one of the new bedrooms lying in bed. She was thinner than normal. I guess  she had cancer. Later she wouldn’t allow us to see her. Then she died. For us kids death in the 60’s seemed normal what with all the death and dying. John F Kennedy, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Bobby Kennedy, Dad’s oldest brother and his wife died six months apart and then grandmother. It seemed normal to me except I began thinking it was more serious than that because the first time I saw my Dad cry was at his oldest brother’s funeral.