How WE (W=Ward, E=Elynor) Met

12 March 2012; Grumpy's Lonely Castle --

A few readers may have heard the story of how the Grand Mother and Grumpy happened to meet each other. Now, at last, the "truth" is revealed! The evidence is included in this Post, in her own handwriting. Yes, you read that right: "in her own handwriting". But read on for the entire -- and true! -- story.

These tidbits of historical writings were found among the treasures stashed away in her belongings. [Grumpy is still looking for that elusive, delicious, delectable, unbeatable Lemon Meringue Pie recipe!]

I suppose it is only fair to start with her version of how she met me -- from her perspective:

She leaves out the fact that she was introduced to me at a football game by my younger sister several days before the "fudge party". Even more to the point, she neglects to mention the severe "boo-ing" she helped to heap upon me a year earlier when I came into a hotly-contested District championship basketball game from which her school had already been eliminated as an unworthy contestant. That was, I believe, the first time she actually saw me.

The first time I saw her was about six or eight months after that basketball game; I was now in the U.S. Navy, home on leave, and watching some kind of high school production with my Mother. The One who became the Grand Mother was dressed in a wedding gown, singing a then-popular song, "I'll Be Loving You, Always".

Of course, she was stunning in the white gown and I asked my Mother who she was. My Mother answered, "She's a girl from Midland; you wouldn't know her." As a Senior in high school the previous year, I had come to "appreciate" that girls from Midland were "wild, snobbish, or otherwise undesirable". So I dismissed this girl as "one of those", and let it go at that.

The fact is, she had transferred from Midland high school to Philip high school the year after I graduated and had become "best friends" with my kid sister, Hazel. Her folks had decided that Philip offered a better quality of education than did Midland. Besides, her sister and brother-in-law had begun teaching at Philip High, and had agree that she could stay with them.

Next, whether fair or not, we have her version of how I met her -- from her perspective:

At the time of the "fudge party", she was going "steady" with a guy named "Flash". Flash had been an underclassman at Philip when I was a Senior; I never learned why or where he got the nickname, "Flash". Anyway, the fact that she would go to a party for the sole purpose of disrupting another young girl's fantasy of enchanting a poor, helpless U.S. Navy cadet should tell the reader a lot about the workings of this honey-blonde-hair covered brain of hers.

In her version, she neglected to mention the fact that she came to the party dressed in a flared skirt topped by a fuzzy white sweater that did nothing to hide the alluring features of her "curves in all of the right places". And me, just an 19-year old, freshly-soloed Naval Aviation Cadet!

All thoughts of "just another Midland girl" vanished from my head and Admiral Farragut's command at the Battle of Mobile bay, "Damn the torpedoes and full speed ahead", or Admiral Dewey's command at the Battle of Manila bay, "You may fire when ready, Gridley", roared through my brain. This was a girl to be reckoned with!

Ultimately, though, it was not her outwardly attractive features which convinced me that "this was the girl I wanted for my wife". It was her sincere, solid inner character that was most attractive: The fact that she gave me respect and honor, accepting my overtures as no other girl had and demonstrating a deep and abiding love that, as time has proven, lasted for a lifetime.

I am still looking for that letter she claims she had kept all these years, where she declares that I asked her to marry her. Perhaps it will be like the ever-elusive Lemon Meringue Pie recipe.

Some More Memories

03 March 2012; Grumpy's Lonely Castle --

The other day, as we were investigating what valuable (sentimentally as well as monetarily) the things that the Grand Mother had stashed away in all of her "secret" hidey holes, Grumpy happened on an especially poignant poem that he wanted to share with the readers. [Grumpy has not read this poem in its entirety until this moment; I only read far enough to realize what a treasure of thoughts and emotions it contains. So I will cry as I write this post.]

As an introduction to showing the scanned images of Grandma's handwritten copy of this poem, the reader should keep in mind that she was with her Mother (Great Grandma Noble) when she died of pancreatic cancer in early summer 1971, after having endured the discomforts of Chemotherapy and perhaps also radiation treatments. [Now, perhaps you can understand why the Grand Mother chose not to have Chemo or radiation treatments for her cancer.]

I will transcribe the words as best as I can perceive them on this wrinkled, old and stained piece of paper:

This is the front side

"My Mother --"

"I held her hand as she died

or rather she held mine.

"It seemed so long.

I could only stand by

watching life flow from her --

So frail she was.

So little and so weak.

"Oh God, how much strength

it takes ....

To die.

And so I stood,

Her hand clutching mine ---

Her every breath a moan.

... and this is the back side.

"My own body

Grew weary 

Ached ---

Until I suddenly remembered

The times when I was little and afraid

And tired and even cross.

What strength there was 

And what comfort, 

Security,

Came to me from Mother.

"And now

My strength is hers.

To comfort, to console,

To reassure."

"Yea, tho' I walk thro' the ..... "

Blessed Jesus!

"Into thy hands I commit ... "

"My mother

I held her hand as she died."

And I held Mother's hand as she drew her last breath. Now I know how she felt when she held her own Mother's hand -- and how she felt as she wrote this poem.

Sincerely, Not so Grumpy