Grandma and Grandpa's House: Silliness and Young Love

Grandma's dry-heaving was sadly entertaining. We had heard the stories of how our uncles would tease her, making her gag. There was usually a booger involved or talk of one. Grandma couldn't handle that subject. Just the mention of one was Grandma's nightmare. She would immediately start to retch. Now, to describe Grandma's retching...It was much more than you would imagine. She would not only make the sound and movement of vomiting, but her whole body would be taken over by it, repeatedly jerking forward and upward. And while she was doing this 'vomit dance', she would start whooping. I have no idea why she whooped. She just did. Her whooping would start to come out faster, louder, and higher.

My first experience with this was when we were eating hamburgers for dinner. They were delicious; so, Grandma asked Grandpa where he bought the meat from.

"I got them from the booger shop," replied Grandpa, giggling.

"Whoop! Whoop! Whoop!!! Dennis! Whoop! You know better!! Whoop! Whoop!"

It was amazing how quickly Grandma's brain would shut off when she got tired. Her bedtime was at 8:00 PM. By 8:03 PM, she couldn't speak without stuttering on words or completely saying the wrong thing. One night, when we were getting ready for bed, she tried to quiet us down so that she could read us our nightly story.

"Girls! You need to be quiet before I can fart the....I mean start the story!"

We burst out laughing and she tried to battle against it, but she couldn't. She started to smile, her eyes wrinkling in the corners, and then giggle and then we were all crying from laughing so hard. We howled and groaned as we held our sore stomachs. We would find out later that she also told one of her students to, 'fart here'. Though she kept a straight face and didn't laugh then, she randomly laughed in the middle of her very next lesson while thinking about her previous blunder.

Grandma knew everything. She was this book that you could open and read. She knew something about every subject. She was also full of ideas and dreams. I loved reading her. She was there for my first church talk and my second and third. She was there for my school presentations and speeches. If she didn't know much about a subject, she would spend the day researching and learning. She would then come back, show me all of her sources, and teach me.

Grandma loved romance. She loved reading about it and watching it in movies. Grandma rarely let me see her room. It was crowded, piles and shelves of books, binders, and papers everywhere. Her room looked like something you would see in an episode of Hoarders. I don't know how she slept in there, because I couldn't even breathe. She had music everywhere and papers with her scribbles. She wrote notes on everything. There were receipts with her notes on them, notes about students, music, and religious topics. And then, smack in the middle of this mess was her bed. She dusted off the top of one of her shelves and handed me some books. One said, Harlequin Romance, at the top and then the title: A Girl Named Rose. This was the first of many Harlequin Romance books that I read. I almost always read Betty Neels' books, because Grandma and I preferred her writing. Hers was more old-fashioned, the kind where they finally kiss at the end after they get engaged. Betty Neels had a very similar story for each of her books. There was almost always a plain and quiet nurse who worked for a handsome but intimidating and sometimes rude Dutch doctor. They were always Dutch. They often had long and complicated names that I couldn't pronounce: Sybren Werdmer Ter Sane, Fulk Van Hensum, Coenraad Van Essen, and Gerard Van Doorninck. I loved them despite their simple layout and I read them often.

She showed me her movie collection. She had boxes full of tapes that she had recorded them on. Each movie had multiple movie titles scribbled on the front. She had hundreds and could describe them in detail when I would ask what a certain one was about. I fell in love. I loved the classic romances of the 1920's-1960's. I fell in love with Jimmy Stewart, Lawrence Olivier, Cary Grant, Gregory Peck, Fred Astaire, Rock Hudson, and James Dean. We suffered through Gene Kelly's bad acting to witness his perfect dancing. We sang alongside Judy Garland and pretended to dance like Ann Miller. We wanted the comic timing of Doris Day and the witty attitude of Katharine Hepburn. We loved watching Vivien Leigh, Maureen O'Hara, Greer Garson, Olivia de Havilland, Jean Arthur, Joan Fontaine, Cyd Charisse, Grace Kelly, Audrey Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor, and Jane Powell on the screen of Grandma's small TV.

We memorized their songs and lines. She watched me as I practiced walking gracefully. We had tea parties where we talked like ladies. It was so fun! Some of our favorite movies to watch: The Harvey Girls, His Girl Friday, Seven Brides For Seven Brothers, Meet Me In St. Louis, Gone With The Wind, Singin' In The Rain, An Affair to Remember, The Pirate, That Hagen Girl, Gigi, Pillow Talk, The African Queen, Roman Holiday, To Catch a Thief, How to Steal a Million, The Philadelphia Story, The Quiet Man, Easter Parade, You Can't Take It With You, How to Marry a Millionaire, Brigadoon, The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer, Some Like It Hot, Charade...

My two favorites that Grandma showed me have to be Tammy and the Bachelor and Margie. They're both similar, sweet and funny. Tammy is about a simple and naive girl (Debbie Reynolds) who falls in love with a refined man who doesn't notice her at first. Margie is about a bright but odd high school girl (Jeanne Crain) who has a crush on her French teacher and one of her popular peers. She also has constant trouble with her pantaloons. I loved watching these two with Grandma. We would giggle and re-watch scenes just to giggle some more.