Monday, Oct 12, 2009

I ran across Kansville Blvd in Council Bluffs with 4 other people my age. It’s night and they waited for cars but I just ran without looking. While I was running up the hill one of the people in my group hi-jacked this machine that looked like a grocery cart with backpack straps on the front to help steer. We all piled in with our bags. The person in the front straps didn’t want to drive so I did. Since we were going uphill the motor was too weak and we all had to walk anyway. I was having a hard time remembering what street my great grandma lived on. I was confused. But then walking farther up the hill I knew it when I saw it right away. But it wasn’t a street I was looking at anymore, it was the inside of a house. A giant old house with multiple hallways and each one had a community room in the middle of the hallway. Not like a ghetto community room; it all had nice wooden ceilings, walls, and floors. Nice furniture. My grandma lived at the very end of the hallway, in the top of the house. Her door had been drywalled over and I got worried but then I saw the sign for her room on a door one over. They had combined her room with another and got rid of the extra door. The door was closed and after figuring my knocking wouldn’t be heard, I knocked anyway while I opened it. She was small and sleeping in her bed. I said “Grandma I’m here!” and she woke right up. I had brought her some cook wear. A couple of casserole cans and a plastic strainer. She asked me and the people with me if we wanted any of them. In my mind I thought I don’t want them yet, and thought maybe when she passed away I would like to have one. Awkward and guilty feeling. Everyone declined the offer. She was going to give me some mail to send. She asked me if I brought Dave along and I said no, He’s in Kansas City. I glanced at a couple of the letters that she was addressing and noticed her perfect handwriting. Also noticed that I had never heard of this lady’s name and wondered who she was. My grandma was pressing the addresses onto the envelops from carbon paper or something. She also was using a word processor. The thing that’s like a typewriter but you see what you write on a tiny screen before it prints off. I commented on her nice handwriting on the outside of the letter and she handed me 10 little booklets all filled with more drawings and comic book like storylines. One storyline was about a trapeze artist doing a show. Another booklet was full of Simpson’s characters in full color and perfect. I passed them around to my friends and we were all impressed. Grandma started talking about some older casserole dishes she used to have. One had etching design that she liked but when she cooked it the places it was etched just shattered. I told her about how I lived in a big house in college, also in the attic and enjoyed being up there and the nice view but disliked bats and she said she didn’t have that problem. I remember thinking I was glad she was living in a house with other people so that she wouldn’t be undiscovered should something happen. I remember also thinking about all these questions I wanted to ask her about her life but was too shy to ask. I wanted to know her earliest memory. I just wanted a better understanding of her life.