organized chaos

Here’s #5 of (Almost) Everything I Know I Learned in East Texas.  For your convenience I’ve added a category for East Texas.  So if you want to start at the beginning, scroll down the sidebar till you get to “On The Brain” and click the little white box.  Then click “East Texas.”  And the latest posts are from top to bottom. 

A Gazillion Grandparents Don’t Necessarily Equal Loads of Cash

In addition to the two sets of grandparents I had from Donnie, they also had living parents in some form. Let me break it down for simplicity’s sake. Donnie’s birth father, we called Grandad, and his wife we called Memom. No living parents for them. But Donnie’s mother, we called Nanny and her husband, Papa. Nanny’s mother was still alive while we were there and we called her Big Granny. A tall woman to be sure, but I was told at one time Nanny was called Little Granny and her mother, Big Granny. By the time we moved to Texas, it was just plain Nanny.

Papa, Nanny’s husband had living parents then and they didn’t get a funny name. Nice enough people from what I can remember. I spent a night at their house once and got sick to my stomach from the overwhelming smell of moth balls in their house. And of course my mother had living parents, my beloved grandparents in Kansas that I immortalized as the benevolent benefactors of every good feeling that I’d ever had.

So I’ve heard that most kids, while loving their grandparents for who they are and all, also love them for the cold cash most older people love to dole out to their little youngsters. I’ve certainly observed that with my own children and my husband’s parents. In addition to cash, every McDonald’s toy known to man has made it’s way to our house via The Package from Laredo, Texas where they live two states away from us. Even if they lived with us, I’ve got a feeling that we would still host all those dinky toys meant to show a grandparent’s love and devotion to my little tots.

But the family in East Texas had a different way of showing their love. Let’s start with Grandad, one of my personal favorites. Remember, this was Donnie’s birth father, and they couldn’t be more different. We loved the crap out of that man. He’d roar down our lake road on his luxury motorcycle, the kind you could fit five people on if it were legal. Complete with two containers on the back for groceries or extra large boots, it would shine in the Texas sun heralding Grandad’s arrival. He was never in a hurry to get anywhere once he got off his two wheeled piece of heaven and actually sauntered around like an old cowboy with nothing to prove. Inevitably one of his jean legs would be turned up and stuck on the top rim of his boot. He never bent down to fix it. His arms were covered with tattoos of women, some topless, some not. And that would be a conversation obsession for us kids for hours at a time.

I don’t remember Grandad passing out cash as gifts, but in our opinion he gave us the next best thing. Sodey Pop. In our little office where park guests checked in for their stay stood a Coke machine. Donnie had the keys and occasionally felt nice enough to help himself to the quarters inside, either to plunk them back in there for us to have a treat, or for whatever else he needed quarters for. But Grandad used his own quarters and we’d all jump around like maniacs, shouting out our sodey pop choices. Grape, root beer, orange, even Coke with the caffeine were popular choices, since my mother didn’t seem overly concerned with our sugar intake. After all, we’d probably run it off before coming back in anyway. Nobody hung out in the house.

Then after we were done slurping down our carbonated sugar, we’d beg Grandad for a ride on his mean machine. He always carried an extra helmet and he’d zip us up and down our long lake road. For a short moment we were speed gods, taking on the burning highway, high from our sodey pop buzz.

The next interesting character on the grandparent list was Nanny. No cash there either. Here’s what I remember about Nanny: she had lots of beer, and she drank most of it. I recall a tall, skinny woman in long polyester pants gulping down a beer every time I turned around. She played the role of the authoritative matriarch. Nanny’s law was not something to be trifled with. And although she downed so much brew, I don’t recall her being drunk. She was so skinny her body must’ve just burned off anything that passed her lips within 5.2 seconds. I did feel some affection for her, and looked forward to going to her house. So there must have been something fun there. Maybe it was food, I don’t know.

Papa, Nanny’s second husband made his way quietly. I’ve found that to be true with bossy women. The husband will usually be the quiet one, content to let his woman do the clucking. He wasn’t a wimp. The man drove a Cadillac, for crying out loud. In fact, he worked for Cadillac for years, and that I knew that even as a kid should be an indication that East Texans held that up as a thing to be admired. Papa, I’m told, had a soft spot for me. I did feel that from him, although he was so quiet. I never really knew why, but it may have had something to do with his knowing I was a foreigner in this family, even before I knew. I wouldn’t realize until much later, but when I found out they weren’t my birth family, many things began to make sense. It was subtle, but compared to the other grandkids, people like Nanny did treat me a little differently. Like a short term visitor. This would play out much later when we moved from Texas to Kansas. They never called or wrote to my memory. No Christmas gifts in the mail. Nothing. They’re very loyal to their Texas residents. I had crossed the line. I think if Papa had not been attached to Nanny by a marriage certificate, he may have contacted me. Quiet men are funny like that.

Then there was Memom. I have no idea where that name came from. While Papa made nice in a distant way, Memom filled the warmth a grandmother should have. She filled the southern woman’s shoes to a tee. All the good things, like gentleness mixed with firm discipline, beauty mixed with hard work, good food and a clean, orderly house, and attentiveness to all the grandchildren. She genuinely cared about me. Almost as much as my grandma back in Kansas. And Memom and Grandad actually came to visit us in Kansas when we moved.

All that said, some good things have come out of my experience with grandparents in Texas. Cash is gone quickly in the hands of children, but a good grandparent makes warm memories for a lifetime.