A VISIT TO GRANDMA'S HOUSE

The holiday season is only a hair’s breath away. For many, this means visiting relatives. Mine lived far away in a distant state when I was growing up. Unless you live in Florida like me, summer is probably just a memory by now. Here, the temperatures were still in the mid to high 80’s until recently.

I only stayed at my grandmother’s house once, and that was enough! That June of 1958 school had ended just a week before. My mother & I boarded a late night flight for Detroit, where I was born. The guys (Dad, Grandpa, & my brother) remained in Hobe Sound in our rented cottage across from the mangroves. 

Many of our Northern relatives & friends had not seen me since I was a year old. Back in 1952 my family packed our 2 cars and set off for a new life in the Sunshine State.

Now I had just completed my first year of elementary school and I was a big Second Grader!  At least that’s how I viewed myself.

After 5 days at Aunt Kiki’s house, Mom & I planned to spend the remaining 5 at my grandmother’s place. This was the house where Mom and her 3 sisters had grown up. Grandma lived in a distant part of Detroit and it felt like a long drive.

On the way over, a sense of gloom swept over me. Perhaps it was all those stories about Grandma I’d heard from relatives. I always had the feeling her daughters cared for her more out of duty, than love. This was the only grandmother I had ever known.  My paternal grandmom died when my dad was 7 years old.

Grandma was a strict Pentecostal, (Holy Roller) she wouldn’t even allow a Christmas tree in the home because she considered it pagan.  My mother never had a meal inside a restaurant until after she was married. Dad used to say she was afraid to go inside one on dates!

My mother’s family was poor. They rented their upstairs and basement to boarders. The family was confined to the small downstairs area. A practice my Grandmother continued long after her husband died and her daughters married and moved out.

Once we entered Grandma’s neighborhood I could feel it in the air. All the houses were from another era. Had it not been for the traffic on the street, I could swear I’d gone back in time.

The inside of her home smelled like a crypt. Everything looked depressingly worn and outdated. It was a far cry from Aunt Kiki’s elegant and spacious house.

My grandma appeared deceptively frail. She was actually feisty and mean. I was her ONLY granddaughter, all the others were boys! Right away she didn’t like my blonde hair. My mother pointed out that it was growing in darker in the back and I probably wouldn’t stay blonde for long.

The only other natural blonde in our family was her daughter Kiki (the family slut) who caused Granny grief. Kiki married well, but later thought she could do better and lost everything. Kiki’s hair also darkened, but she bleached it back in her late teens, as did I.

We were introduced to the upstairs tenants, an older childless couple. Later, we met the renter in the basement, a Hispanic man in his early 30’s.

Next door on the right was a family of foreigners, from an Eastern European country. The daughter was a slim, pretty girl about 11 or maybe 12. She had black curls all over her head.  She seemed more of a young lady to me than a child. I watched her and her girlfriends on their front step from my Grandmother’s bay window. The other children in the house were younger boys.

Mom did all the grocery shopping during our visit. As I sat snacking on crackers Grandma leaned over. “Soda crackers dry up your blood,” she proclaimed. She swore a nurse told her this as fact!

I went outside to play. The back yard was tiny. There was nothing to do except eat the peeling lead paint chips off the old house.

I didn’t learn until a decade later this was injurious to my health! -- If they don’t want children eating lead paint chips why did they make them so damn tasty! Anyway, I hope they haven’t caused any long term effects. – Hey, at least they didn’t dry up my blood!

Family friends were constantly dropping over to marvel at how I had grown. Everyone vividly recalled the day I was born. I heard repeatedly how Mom had been rushed from a Beauty Salon to the Hospital. I came into the world in the early evening.  I’ve since heard this is the least likely time for a baby to be born.

After the last one left, I gave sigh of exhaustion and declared I was going outside. “And stay out!” my grandmother snapped. I was stunned, during this visit I had been on my best behavior.

Outside, I sat on the grass. I heard someone approaching from behind. I turned and gazed up into the beautiful smiling visage of the girl next door. She introduced herself and was quite friendly and pleasant. She thought my mother & I were new upstairs tenants. I explained that the old woman was my grandmother and I would be leaving on a plane for Florida, soon. She left shortly after I told her this.

Ironically, that evening, my mother reminded me how Grandma used to cut a switch from the cherry tree and whip her and her sisters over every minor infraction. She implied that I was actually seeing a mellower version of my grandmother.

Late the following afternoon, I was in the back yard as my mother packed to leave. I heard a loud scream and then another emanating from the house next door. The screaming turned to piercing shrieks. Those horrid sounds grew increasingly worse! It was THAT girl!!! I heard her cry out, “Stop!” several times followed by long, shrill wails. What were they doing to her!? What horrible act had she committed to deserve such a thing, or perhaps they were just horrible parents.

I wanted those awful sounds to stop!!! I wanted to help her, but I felt small and powerless. I couldn’t stand to hear it any longer! I went indoors.

 

I never mentioned it to either my mother or grandmother. I knew I would just be told, “It's not our concern" and to forget it. This is how people thought back then. To put this in modern terms, reacting negatively would have been considered judgmental.

Later, my uncle came and took us back to Kiki’s house. That night, we would catch our flight home.

After returning, my older friend Sharla came down from Stuart with her mom. I related this awful incident to her.

“Why didn’t you go over there and tell them to stop!” she snapped. Sharla glowered accusingly at me.

“I was afraid!” I exclaimed. “They might do to me what they were doing to her!” I thought Sharla was crazy for even asking me that!

 “Aw they couldn’t do anything to YOU!” she replied. “You weren’t their child! The worse they could have done was tell you to leave.”

Well I wasn’t so sure, just months before, I watched my otherwise kindly, old teacher paddle a boy until he cried before the entire class. And he wasn’t HER child, either! Plus this was far from a rare occurrence.

I was eager to see my other friend, Noreen. I thought she would understand! Neither of us got along with our mothers, we used to commiserate, this was our bond. But as soon as I confided that I didn’t like my grandmother and never wanted to see her again, I was flabbergasted by Noreen’s reaction.

“Shame on you!” she hollered. “Don’t you dare talk dirt about your grandmother!  Grandmothers are nice!!!”

“Not all of them!” I shouted back. We argued back and forth. She refused to listen. Finally, I just walked out. The incident was never brought up.

While Mom & I were up North, my father landed a great new job! In another week, we would be leaving Hobe Sound and moving back up the coast to Stuart.

I never said good-bye to Noreen. She is mostly forgotten, and so is Sharla, now. But after all these decades I remain saddened by the memory of the pretty girl with the black curls.