Flashback Friday # 112

Maternal Grandparents

Greetings one and all. Welcome back to this little plot of cyberspace that I call Flashback Friday. I have described my paternal grandparents who lived in Westerville, but I have yet to mention my maternal grandparents. This post is to remedy that.

My maternal grandparents lived in a "suburb" of our county seat. I can only remember being there a few times. I do remember, however, that under no circumstances did you ever leave anything there. Grandpa said that if something of yours spent the night at his house, it became his. I also remember, thanks to my brother bringing it up, that he had a talking crow named Joe.

Grandpa had a motorcycle with a sidecar that he rode to most places. At least most places that he didn't want Grandma to go with him. She was, being politically correct, caloricly challenged. She had a hard time squeezing herself into the sidecar. She drove her car to wherever she was going.

One evening, when I was 5 or 6, Grandpa headed off to bingo with some of my relatives (he loved bingo, as does most of Mom's family). While on the way, he suffered a massive heart attack. He died before they could get him to the hospital.

One of the stranger things that I can recall, happened at his funeral. The funeral was over, and the family was headed to the graveside service. As we were getting out of the car, I told my Mom, "Look, there's Grandpa in the sky". Mom felt a child of my age wouldn't be making something like that up.

Grandma lived another 4 years after Grandpa's demise. One of the funniest stories that I can remember about her happened at our house. We had hosted a family get together. In doing so, we had to haul out the folding chairs. She chose one of these to sit in. While folks were outside enjoying every one's company, Grandma stayed inside to watch TV. She fell asleep while watching. As she slept, her posterior squeezed itself through the opening of the folding chair like a play dough fun factory. Dad walked in and saw her rear hanging down and let out a laugh so loud that it woke her up. she yelled at him to stop laughing, and help her out of the chair.

When I was 9, Grandma passed away, also of a heart attack.

Mom has a picture of them together, so I took a picture of it with my cell phone. Mom was fascinated that I could do such a thing. Here is a picture of my maternal grandparents: