Retelling Gran’ma’s Stories in the Right Position
Gran’ma sits at the round kitchen table in the rec-room that was once a garage. Some of the garage is still visible — the door, and a small deck area fro storage covered by drapes. The real reason I’m here is to listen to gran’ma’s stores, which is why I always come — the chores are worth doing to hear her.
“Didjya get the table cleaned off?”
“Yes, gran’ma.”
“What’cha do with the crumbs?”
She already knows. I look down.
“Get the sweeper.”
I know I’m supposed to sweep the crumbs into my hands, then throw them into the trash can under the sink, but it takes longer to do that. I quickly pull the sweeper out, struggling with its massive weight to clean the freckled floor of bread crumbs from our made-together cheese toasties. I must do it quickly, but not so fast as to miss a spot.
“Good. I’ll get it later”; she means the sweeper. She knows I’m eager to hear a story, if not stories.
Gran’ma sits in one of the bucket chairs, and I pull up another on the other side of the table. Elbows and chin are always needed from gran’ma’s stories.
“Here, when your dad was small, we bought the first television. All the neighbor kids would come watch the television in the evening. The living room would be full. I remember Bud’s friend, Butch, whose family thought they controlled everything. He thought him and Bud were in charge. Your dad and his friends would watch Howdy Doody. Butch thought he’d watch. . . .”
I’m sorry to say, I can’t remember what the name of the other show is.
Anyway. . . .
“He turned the channel. I wasn’t having it. I grabbed his ear.”
The ear is gran’ma’s favorite body part when she gets mad at you. I’ve seen uncle tom’s ear dragged a few times to his bedroom.
“I didn’t care who his parents were. They could buy a television of their own to watch, by the Almighty. They weren’t going to rule my house.
“Your dad and his friends went back to Howdy Doody. I made Bud watch the show too. Just because you’re the oldest doesn’t mean yo do whatjya want.
“Pete, Jack’s friend — your dad’s friend — laughed so hard he threw up his supper. His poor mother was worried sick after I called her. Thought he caught something. He wasn’t allowed back for a few weeks.
“Every week the same group of kids came. I didn't’ mind all the kids. Preferred it.
“One evening, Jack — your dad, . . . .”
My gran’ma has a habit of doing that. Like I would forget who my father is.
“. . . Wanted to play ball instead of watch Howdy Doody. He refused to watch the show. We all had a good time.”
It’s hard for me to imagine my dad missing a show. My dad wanting to play ball! If he thinks he won’t be home for a show, he sets the tape recorder. Before electronic smarts, he bought the tape with the longest recording hours. Mom would have to start the recorder before we left to pick him up at work, so when we returned from the baseball diamond — he coached baseball — he could watch all those shows he missed.
“The television wasn’t very large. I don’t know how all those kids could see the screen. The box was so large; it made the screen look like a square plate. Brown wood encased all the gadgets in the back; gadgets that took up more room than the screen. The television always went off after Howdy Doody.”
This isn't’ my favorite story, but my dad is in it. It’s hard to imagine this house without three back rooms, and the bathroom. If I heard gran’ma right, when she told this story before, they were the first with indoor plumbing — a bathroom!
Gran’ma begins another story; this time it’s about Bud.
“I got a call from Butch’s mom. She didn't’ like what I had to say. Always running around, making me have to chase bud down. If all beat it! He crawled into bud’s window, woke up the other boys, trying to get Bud to take a joy ride in his parents’ new car. I called them up. ‘No, no, our son’s in bed.’
“I walked him home. Bud didn’t see the light for days, and stayed in my room on the floor.”
I wondered how gran’ma knew if he stayed there. No reason to ask. Gran’ma knows everything.
“Always knew what Bud was up to. Neighbor’s kept me informed. Even knew he broke into the school to steal a test before the principle called.”
______________________________
I love stories, and write them down the only way I know how: mostly with squiggly lines because my vocabulary isn't’ large enough yet. And I want to write the fancy way. Gran’ma listens to my stories, asks questions, and I explain. I feel very big. I can tell a story as good as gran’ma’s!
My favorite stories are about Betty. She’s my aunt, but I can’t see her. There’s the story of the Fortune Teller, and the story of dad playing jacks with her. Both are creepy, and always give me goose bumps.
“Down in Converse, when your dad used to sit on grandma Cunningham’s stairs, and played jacks, he would sometimes talk to himself. He was about four when he started. Grandma would listen to him a lot. She finally told me to pay attention. One morning, Jack — your father — took his jacks to the stairwell. He would close the door at the foot of the stairwell. After listening through he door some, I decided a chair would be handy. Ic an be sneaky. I oiled the hinges and knob so I could prop the door open to hear. Grandma was usually upstairs fro a nap when she heard Jack.
“That morning, Jack — your dad — sat at about the third step up. He started playing jacks. About the fourth bounce he started talking. ‘It’s your turn now,’ I heard the ball bounce some more. ‘Hah! My turn.’ then he’d ask questions, ‘Whenya comin’ home?’ ‘Why can’t you?’ This wen ton for a long time. I was concerned. The doctor said he’d grow out of it in time. I listened whenever I could.
“I was at the top of the stairwell one day. I didn’t bother him. He started playing jacks; and if that ball and jacks didn’t move on their own!”
I could see my father sitting on the steps at Grandma Rose’s. It wasn’t hard to see him as a little boy. Gran’ma had plenty of pictures. I shivered. Every time gran’ma tells the story, I shiver.
_______________________
I write in cursive now. Gran’ma reads my stories. Still, she prefers I read them to her as she does her chores. I follow her around the house, scurrying behind her. At times, she’s at the sink, and I talk to her as she mumbles approval, or asks questions: why, who’s that? Occasionally she nods her head. There are two comments she always makes to me: “You should be a writer. You and Mark [my cousin, the master of philosophy, the poet, the calligrapher] have beautiful penmanship.” I know that writing and penmanship are two different things. I want to know why I get ‘C’s for handwriting if what gran’ma says is true. Comparing me to my cousin makes me special — he is smart!
___________________________
High school is here. I still listen to the stories; I still write my own, burt not as often. But I start to ask questions.
I ask dad about the stairs, about the jacks, about Betty. He doesn’t say much the first time.
Dad finally talks to me, just a little. “I use to talk to Betty on the stairs all the time. We’d play jacks when she stayed home.”
He interjects his feelings about government interfering. This was a time when a doctor and the state could force a family to send a child to an institution for retardation, especially fi the family wasn’t rich.
“That was our secret place. We’d talk about everything. She hated that place.”
This is all I receive for awhile. I let it go, and wait.
A few weeks later, maybe a month, he opens up some more, calls me unexpectedly: “I would talk to her. I kept begging her to stay. I was only four. Children at that age are still connected to the spirit world.”
Dad doesn’t go to church anymore, but he still believes. He believes in ghost, he believes in aliens, he believes in the unusual. No more is said. I wait again. There’s something that isn’t being said; something that my gran’ma always hints at; I’ll wait until dad is ready to tell me.
He calls a few weeks later. There is something about the fact that I’m interested in this subject. Maybe it is because I’ve told him the story that gran’ma has told me. Anyway, he calls: “Gran’ma calls the doctor. He tells her I made up an imaginary friend to replace Betty. Betty wasn’t imaginary. That ball, and those jacks, moved on their own.”
I go back to gran’ma’s story in my mind. I write it out. I put dad’s words into the story. What is being said? I don’t know what to do with this information. I begin to ask more questions of my father, then ask my uncles. Much more begins to make sense, but as I begin to tell the stories I feel that something is wrong. Where’s Grandma Rose? Where’s gran’ma? Does dad know they are there? Why can’t I get this story or any of the others to come out right?
___________________________
I have three children. My oldest, Jessica, listens to gran’ma’s stories; David is beginning to know the stories too. I write the stories down into my journals, or other papers that I put into large three ring binders that I keep ordered on a book shelf. I change the stories every time I write, especially when I retrieve new information. Today I will tell a story orally.
“When your Grandpa Jack was little, he used to play jacks. Remember the house you saw when we went down to Converse? He would sit in the stairwell. Ya know how Grandma Luebke’s stairs lead to the upstairs? The stairs looked something like that, with the door at the bottom. Grandpa would sit on about the fourth step up, and play jacks. One day, your grandpa’s grandma, Grandma Rose — the older lady you saw in the black n’ white picture that looks like a football player — heard him talking. She was upstairs taking a nap when she heard voices. Gran’ma Ginny was usually in the kitchen or out in the garden, like she does now. Grandpa would play jacks, talking to himself. Or so his Grandma Rose thought. He would ask questions, such as, ‘When ya comin’ home?’ after awhile, his Grandma Rose became concerned, telling his mom — Gran’ma Ginny. One day, Gran’ma Ginny sat and listened, but since she couldn’t hear well enough through the door closed, she decided to crack the door open a bit. The door squeaked; grandpa stopped playing his jacks. Every time Gran’ma Ginny tried to catch him talking to himself, grandpa would stop. She kept asking Grandpa chick to oil the hinges and door, telling him the door was getting hard top open. Grandpa Chick wouldn’t do it if she told him the real reason; he would tell her to leave the boy alone. Finally, she oiled the door one day, moving items in the garage — Gran’pa Chick’s space, after jumping on Gran’pa Chick too many times, who never got around to it.
“The next time she had a chance to listen to him, she pulled a chair up close, cracked the door — no squeak. Grandma Rose was upstairs. Gran’ma Ginny listened every day. So did Grandma Rose. Gran’ma Ginny, and Grandma Rose, would talk about what grandpa did, and what he said. They started to believe that grandpa was seeing Betty’s ghost. Uncle Bud heard Grandma Rose say she saw things when jack — your grandpa — was on those stairs.
“Grandpa would say, ‘It’s your turn now’; ‘You missed that jack’; ‘Why don’t you come home anymore?’
“Gran’ma Ginny called the doctor. The doctor told her he had an imaginary friend to replace Betty. Gran’ma Ginny didn’t believe the doctor; she thought grandpa was talking to Betty, that grandpa could see Betty. Gran’ma Ginny wanted to see Betty too.
“Finally, one day, Gran’ma Ginny was upstairs before grandpa came to play jacks, because his grandma was sick. She watched him quietly, and listened intently. She saw the ball bounce by itself, and the jacks move into the air, as if someone was playing jacks with grandpa. Betty was playing jacks with grandpa; Gran’ma Ginny is sure of this.
“Gran’ma Ginny kept listening, and one day, she finally heard the other voice. It was Betty. She swears she saw the ball and jacks move by themselves more than once, and heard Betty’s voice a few times. Funny thing is, Gran’ma Ginny could only hear Betty’s voice when she wasn’t looking. I remember Grandma Rose talking about this to Gran’ma Ginny when I had the mumps, and had to stay at gran’ma’s house until I was better.”
Telling gran’ma’s story to my children is much more complicated than the way gran’ma tells the story. I realize that gran’ma’s stories are separated, that certain subjects cannot be crossed, but the stories can be changed: two or three stories happen within in one day of her history, but none of them can be told together. There is never, “while this was happening, so and so was doing this.” this makes it difficult for me to write the stories as I see them happening — as a movie; I want to connect them into a clock-like time line. When I write these stories a as a continuous flow, I ruin the momentum, I ruin the imagery, I ruin the stories. Orally, I don’t do much better.
I complicate the simple. I am in both worlds now — the stories of my gran’ma’s, and the stories from those who are in her stories. Which is the writer? Which is the penmanship?
_______________________
I hear gran’ma’s stories from the grave: all of her stories; even her stories of complaints. Sometimes they haunt me. I see, now, how she lived: black ‘n’ white.
“Dawn, God does punish you. I did something wrong. That’s why Billy is like he is; that’s why Betty died — I went to see the gypsy. I should’ov never seen the gypsy in town. I never went back.”
The fortuneteller story. I was always confused as a child to why she thought God punished her when I was taught in Sunday school that God no longer brings His wrath upon our heads. Now, as I look over her grave, I see the separations in her stories from her life. I begin to realize the times I told my stories as she ran from place to place doing chores was her kind way of showing interest without reinforcing an illusion of publishing. “You should be a writer.” Somewhere inside of her she wanted me to tell the stories because she always bought those stories for me to read from Reader’s Digest that were nonfiction. When she told her stories, we were sitting down; when I told my stories, I was following her around. When I responded to the stories in Reader’s Digest, when we discussed the stories, we sat down at the kitchen table.
Storytelling is for the imagination; penmanship is for the living: “You should be a writer; you have beautiful penmanship like Mark.”
But gran’ma had beautiful handwriting — I loved watching her write on Birthday and Christmas cards; I still look at them today. Penmanship is a job; writing (storytelling) is a pastime. Penmanship like Mark’s was to keep me from being her.
I remember gran’ma telling me that she learned to be a nurse’s aid because she didn’t want to be a sale’s clerk, a receptionist, or a secretary. She also said she didn’t want to be a nurse; she didn’t was the responsibility. Then, I remember her babbling on to Farmer one evening; she was irked about giving “shots” to patients. For years the nurses assigned her to give shots, when the law said no, when she found out that the law said “no.” She would be liable, and wasn’t insured for such liability under the hospital. Gran’ma did her research. She fought, and nearly lost her job. In fact, all the aids fought. I remember the week where the nursing aids “went on strike.” Gran’ma didn’t talk about it much. She also told me how she hated to write up reports. That wasn’t her job either. She hadn’t gone to school; what if there was a mistake?
At gran’ma’s funeral, a very dear friend of hers approached me:
“Are you Virginia’s oldest granddaughter?”
“Yes,” not thinking about Beth, who lives in Denver.
“She was so proud of you. Are you still in school?”
“Yes.” My curiosity was now peaked.
“How much longer before you graduate?”
“I’m a sophomore now.”
“All she wanted was for you to get a college education.”
The woman left me standing there in complete confusion. My gran’ma never asked me about college, nor indicated her pleasure in my attending. Although, one time, she did say, “I’m glad you went back to school.”
______________________________
I’ve finished my bachelors, and have continued onto graduate school. I practice gran’ma’s stories in poetry because prose doesn’t work. Poetry helps, but it still isn't capturing the essence of what gran’ma told. Do I know too much now? Have I collected too much information that my imagination can’t take over? I want to write the Stairwell Story. I take advantage of a poetry class:
talking jacks
Bounce the ball
pick up one.
Bounce the ball
pick up two.
Bound the ball
pick up three.
Now you have missed,
You must speak.
In the stairwell, Jack speaks to his jacks, everyone
thinks :
“Why did you go away?”
No one hears
a reply :
(Shh, Jack, it had to be),
Jack lays out
his jacks, again,
(this way);
Jack shakes
his heads,
“Your turn.”
Bounce the ball. Someone
watches from the upstairs landing,
the fourth bounce recuperates
nothing :
“Betty, why can I see you and they can’t?”
Gran’ma Ginny holds her
breath hoping to hear :
(Jack, you missed four).
Bounce the ball. Alone
he is left to talk it through;
Gran’ma wants the twelve year old
spirit to visit her.
She stands at the stairwell’s door
awaiting the voice of her daughter :
“I’m not growing up
Because you’ll go away.”
(Jack),
jacks roll
without his touch,
(I can’t play anymore).
This isn’t my story. I still cannot feel the story as when gran’ma told it. The writer in me wants to be free. I am free, but lost when I want to tell gran’ma’s stories. Writing these stories give great loss to the way they are supposed to be. What is the story? Maybe I should be asking, “Whose stories are these?” are they gran’ma’s, are they mine, are they the person’s of whom they are about? Are they my children's, or grandchildren's?
And then, there is always, what is the penmanship? First, if ind in myself, the penmanship is the person wanting to be correct, to be perfect, the person who wants all the information in the order it’s supposed to come in. The penmanship is oral-nation coming to life on paper. That’s the logical side of me. I cannot tell the stories my gran’ma told, I can only add to the stories. I will always be in two worlds when I re-tell her stories, for I know what she did not know: that little kid in me enjoying the nonlinear line of a story, where different time lines were all one; and that older I, who is now in the academy, attempting to answer the underlying questions that my children, and grandchildren will ask me, “Why?” Do I need logic; must there be logic?
But there is more, much more happening in the “you should be a writer” and “beautiful penmanship.”
There’s the “like Mark” comment. Mark the ex-philosopher, Mark the ex-poet, Mark the calligrapher, Mark the Fortune 500 company owner. I can only conclude that Mark’s education is what gran’ma saw me doing, that my penmanship would lead me to the Right Position, but not the position that another wants me in — it’s my position.
No, I’m not Mark; and, maybe my penmanship is beautiful, but I can tell stories, I do have a degree, I’m where gran’ma wanted me, in the Right Position. Not the position that someone else wants me in, but the position I want to be in — making change. It’s alright to change gran’ma’s stories. I can be a writer; I can be the penmanship. I don’t always have to please — anyone but me.
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