When I was a girl in the late 1960’s my mom would take my younger sister Linda and I to my grandparents’ house so my grandfather could babysit while she ran errands. Grandpa meet us at the door in his button-down shirt, and suspenders. His curly red hair slicked back straight.
After my mom left, Grandpa would look us over and say, “How about a little something to drink?” We’d nod and follow him into the small kitchen. We’d scramble up into the chairs at the white kitchen work table and Grandpa would prepare our drinks. First, he’d retrieve two small glasses from the cupboard and the metal ice cube tray from the freezer. He wrestle two ice cubes into each glass and give us a look to see if we were pleased. After returning the ice cube tray to the freezer, he’d get a large bottle of Verners and a large can of Hawaiian punch from the fridge. He splashed a little Verners onto the ice in each glass and then add the Hawaiian punch. A quick stir with the wrong end of the spoon and voila, a Grandpa’s special.
We’d sit at the table, sipping our drinks and staring at the extremely curious cookie jar my grandmother kept on the kitchen counter. It was a large, fat, very bald monk. Across the belly, in words I couldn’t read until I was older it said, “Thou Shalt Not Steal”. Grandpa would offered us a cookie, and we’d smile back yes with our Hawaiian punch mustaches. He’d remove the head of the monk, reach into its cavernous belly and pull out one cookie each. Now, Oreos and Hawaiian punch may not sound very good to a grownup, but to a 4 and 6 year old, they were just the thing.
After our snack and depending on the weather, we’d head to the backyard to play. My grandparents lived in Detroit, MI. In the late 60’s Detroit was a city in flux. We never played in the front yard, always in the back and to our young eyes, it was an adventure land. There were two large trees with a hammock stretched between them. Over a small rise next to the base of one of the trees my grandfather had placed some paving stones. At the sides of the yard, up against the fence were shrubs, so that as little girls we couldn’t see into the neighbor’s yards at all. We were in our own secret garden. At the back was an old tool shed with a ladder leaning against it.
Our first stop was the flower bed at the side of the house where the snap dragons grew. Grandpa would show us how the flowers mouths opened and closed if you squeezed them just so. We played talking snap dragons until we had pulled the heads off more flowers than grandpa could bare.
Often, the small yard became our farm. An imaginary brook ran under the paving stones and the chickens lived on the rungs of the ladder. While grandpa did odd jobs or sat in his lawn chair, we played. We hauled water from the brook and gathered eggs from the ladder chickens. When we tired of these games we’d climb up in the hammock and try and make it swing back and forth. Eventfully, Grandpa would take pity on our inability to get the hammock moving, he’d come over, we’d lay down in the hammock, and Grandpa would close it over us and swing us back and forth. We’d giggle and wiggle until he figured we and he had had enough.
If the weather wasn’t cooperating, we’d play in the house. When we were little, grandpa would play games with us. Pick up sticks was a favorite, but we didn’t actually play pick up sticks. Linda and I would close our eyes, and Grandpa would leave a trail of sticks for us to follow to find him. Sometime the sticks lead us to a closet, and sometimes to the scary basement. It was years before I learned that wasn’t how you actually played pick up sticks.
Another game was dice. Grandpa had a fascinating box of dice. Different sizes and colors. The game went like this, we each rolled the dice in turn and added up our score. The first one to 100 won. When dice was no longer exciting, we played marbles. Grandpa would cut little doors in a shoe box and we’d shoot the marbles into the box.
When Grandpa got tired, he would sit in his arm chair and let us do his hair. In hindsight, this was an easy way for him to rest and still know what we were up too. We’d comb his hair to one side then the other.
As we got older Grandpa left us to our own devices. We played office at grandma’s desk with the cool address book that had a little knob you slid to the letter you wanted, pushed a button, and it popped opened to the addresses for that letter. Along with the address book, there were paper clips, a stapler and rubber stamps to amuse us.
Another indoor game was airplane. A box fan in the window of the back bedroom and a couple of straight backed chairs was all that was needed. We took turns being the pilot, stewardess or passenger. We travelled by air until mom arrived and our visit with Grandpa was over.
If you’re wondering where my grandmother was during our afternoons with grandpa, she was at work. I never thought about it at the time, but it was a unique situation and afternoons with Grandpa were a treat most kids didn’t get.
Note, my grandfather had brain surgery in the 1950’s and was unable to work much after. My grandmother went to secretarial school and worked for the Detroit Public Schools until she retired in the 1970’s.
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