You are Rich Grandma

Not long after my grandfather Williams died my grandmother moved into a small house in Pittsburg, KY. Though she had moved often in her life and the distance was short I suspect the move was a bit traumatic. It was the first time in all her life that she would live alone. She had gotten married when she was seventeen and had raised eleven children. She was accustomed to a full house, but now everyone was gone. But in moving to the little house in Pittsburg she would not be quite alone for the little house was owned by my Uncle Harve. Only a narrow driveway separated the place my grandmother lived from the larger two story house where Uncle Harve and Aunt Creatie lived. They had operated a store from the building my grandmother lived and upon retirement transformed it into a dwelling.

The house did not have indoor plumbing. Grandma got her water from a well out back. We drew it up with a rope and a bucket. She kept a bucket of drinking water sitting in the kitchen. We drank from a dipper and we all used the same dipper. It was such fun. When we needed to use the toilet we went outside to the little white privy that Grandma shared with Uncle Harve and Aunt Creatie. Grandma had a garden on the other side of the house. She was an avid gardener but this little piece of land did not yield much for her toil. There was too much shade and the soil had a lot of cinders and slate mixed in it. Few means would have been taken to amend the soil structure or fertility. It was just her, a spade and a hoe, and the seed she had saved from the year before.

I would have been between the ages of 5 and 10 when I would go there and spend the day or night. When visiting there I would bounce back and forth between Grandma’s house and Uncle Harve and Aunt Creatie’s. It was only about six “boy steps” from one back door step to the next. Between those door steps I discovered the beauty of my elders. I was full of questions. They would listen. They would take time to answer. I absorbed the answers and marveled at their stories about things and days gone by. It was just them and me. I felt special. I had the opportunity to watch common ordinary folks with meager resources enjoy the simple miniscule things of life.

Both houses sat back no more than 10 feet from the road. Perhaps it was another 100 feet to the tracks of the L & N Railroad. We would sit on the front porch and listen for the trains. Uncle Harve was blind. When the train would come by he would ask me to count the railcars. They were often long trains with well over 100 cars. Each train had a caboose in those days and usually there would be a man riding in the caboose. If you waved at him he would wave back. Till this day if I am stopped at a railroad crossing I will start counting railcars. But there is never a caboose. Uncle Harve would peel the potatoes. I marveled at this blind man’s skill with a paring knife. Sometimes he would sing while doing it. I learned a valuable lesson in those visits that I have to remind myself of quite often. One does not have to have much in life to be happy but you do have to learn to enjoy what you have.

Once when I was staying with Grandma we had to go to town. She had received her check. She called a cab and we went to London. We went to the bank where she cashed her check. I remember the amount. It was $82.00. I looked at her and said “Grandma, you are rich”! I think she smiled. We went to a couple of stores up town, and then we went to the grocery store. The cab came and took us back to Pittsburg. She paid the cabdriver. She would have paid Uncle Harve the rent and I suppose she had an electric bill. I think even then I came to understand that my Grandma was not rich. But I sure am rich for the experience.