A Different Kind of Gramma

One of the traditions in my family is buttermilk pie. Its sort of a lemon merengue pie but with buttermilk. Sounds ghastly, I know, but it's actually pretty good. My great grandmother was from Texas. She always made them. After she got where she couldn't, my grandmother took over. Then somehow, it skipped a generation and it fell to me to make them. I would rather not at this point, because there is tasting involved in getting the amount of lemon juice just right, but my mother told me that, "Yes, you will make them." So make them I did.

So I'm in the kitchen this afternoon making pies and my grandkids are running around the house. Granddaughter turns 3 tomorrow and grandson is 4 and a half. As I was cooking I started thinking about my great grandma. She had lived in a wagon next to the Rio Grande river and fought off bandits by herself while her husband was off working somewhere. And when he was dying of tuberculosis, she packed up the wagon, her husband and her baby and drove him to the nearest town, where he promptly died and left her a widow with a small child. She was a tough old girl. But the way I remember her was squooshie. She was a tall woman with a wide behind, soft squishy chest and flabby arms. I never saw her in anything other than a dress or a nightie. She wore hose and those thick gramma shoes. I remember seeing her wide, dress clad backside in front of the kitchen stove cooking pies and other things. I don't think I ever saw her do anything other than cook, drive her golf cart to church, or sit.

Her daughter, my grandma was short and round and bossy. She wore polyester pantsuits. As I kid I knew better than to set foot in the kitchen when she was cooking. She loved to eat and read. She would take me camping in her camper. I remember one Easter vacation when I was about 9. We were camped in the mountains above San Bernardino CA. There was still snow on the ground. I would go out and play in it once in a while, but mostly I layed in the top bunk of the camper eating Nutter Butter Peanut Butter cookies and reading Little Women. She was in the dinette bed eating her own cookies and reading trashy romance novels. We had a blast.

As I was thinking about my grandmothers, I looked down at myself and started laughing. I was barefoot (I don't think I ever saw either of them barefoot), wearing a pair of red and black, Bad Bones boxer shorts, a red City of Sparks Turkey Trot sweatshirt (which I will be running tomorrow) and the whole thing was covered by a faded pinafore apron a dear friend made me almost 30 years ago..cause I tend to splash! No pantsuits or granny shoes for this gramma. My babies came in and wanted to help, so I let them measure and and stir and we got the pies into the oven.

Growing up, after Thanksgiving dinner, the adults sat around and talked and the kids went of and played somewhere. After dinner tomorrow, my husband and i are taking our grandkids ice skating. I loved my grammas. They were awesome.
But I think it's really cool that when my grandkids remember me, they'll remember that I took them biking, horseback riding, river rafting, hiking, geocaching, ice skating and camping. They'll probably remember sitting in the dugout every season when I played softball. Heck, Caleb was batboy for our team this year. They both like to watch me work out at the gym or work with clients. Caleb is just starting to realize not everybody's gramma can chest press their grandkids. He was watching Caillou today and Caillou's little old grandma was visiting. Caleb looks at me and goes, "You're not old like her. You're still shiny." I said, "Thanks Buddy. Gramma plans on being shiny for a long time." I may be the one who got stuck with the tradition of making the buttermilk pie. But I don't have to eat it. I'm a new kind of Gramma.