All of my biological grandparents have passed away. That happens when your mother is 37 years-old at the time she gives birth to you. My maternal grandfather lived the longest. He was born in Hoboken in 1902 and I think he died in 1999, but maybe it was 2000. His wife (my grandmother) died in 1975, when I just six years old. I vaguely remember driving out to Michigan for her funeral. He remarried a woman who also lost her spouse that year, and she became my new grandmother. We invented a name for her. She became ‘Grandmary.’ For the last thirty-five years Grandmary has never failed to mail me a check for my birthday, and I got very close to her when I went to college in Kalamazoo. My grandfather was old and ailing by then, and it was nice to have someone in the family nearby.
Grandmary was born on August 25th, 1910. Many of her friends and members of our family will be visiting with her on this August 25th to celebrate her 100th birthday. Unfortunately, I can’t be there that week, so I am going now. Tomorrow I will get in a rented minivan and make the trek out to K’Zoo to have a little early celebration. I am also going to visit with one of my college roommates (you may know him as Wolverine Writer) up in Grand Rapids. And then we will wind our way back home. I’ll be on the road most of the time between tomorrow morning and next Friday night, so blogging from me will be extremely light.
Steven is returning from his own vacation tomorrow, so you’ll probably see some posts from him. Man Eegee and Terrance DC can hopefully put up some threads from time to time. But if you don’t hear too much from me over the next week, now you know why.
One topic for discussion. I once went to the Constitution Center in Philadelphia will Grandmary. It was great to go with someone who was born when William Taft was president and who lived through two world wars, the Great Depression, the Cold War, and l’affaire Lewinsky. I asked her who she thought the best president had been during her lifetime. Her answer surprised the hell out of me. She said Eisenhower. The answer doesn’t surprise me so much anymore. I’d still pick FDR, but the competition for second place isn’t too strong. Ike is right in the mix.
Enjoy your travels. May get a chance to post something more rational later (tonight I’m up late worrying), but just in case best wishes! So wonderful that you have Grandmary. 100! Goes without saying she’s delighted to have Finn. Maybe Finn inspires her to stay around for another 100, 50 at least!
Happy travels, BooMan! I hope that the Finnman sleeps well in the car. The boran2 boy always did.
Grandmary sounds like a wonderful person. Enjoy your visit with her. We’ll be off on our own little trek one day soon.
Safe travels in the lovely state of Michigan. You will be in my stomping grounds, I work in GR at GVSU and live along the lakeshore in Muskegon. Lake Michigan is almost 80 degrees, great swimming this time of year. I’ll wave if I see ya.
Have a good time with family, BooMan. I understand. My mother was 40 and my father 47 when I was born.
Have a great time with Grandmary! We had our own little people over for the night last night. They are the brightest stars in our lives!
Cherish the time with your old relatives. I still have my grandmother, who is nearly 96 years old. She just got back from spending two weeks visiting her sister, who is 99. She will turn 100 in October. Having access to the perspective of someone who has lived through such a monumentally dynamic era of our history teaches you things you can never learn from a book (or a blog). Listening to first hand accounts of riding a horse 5 miles each way to school every day, carrying buckets of water from the creek and heating it over an open fire to cook and do the wash, and going into the woods with your siblings to pick wild berries for a pie and pick greens for supper has colored my view of things immeasurably.
If some people in this country right now had their way, they would be more than happy to see these kinds of things become commonplace once again.
Have a great trip!!
Enjoy your trip BooMan. Wave when you get to Kzoo. I’m jealous of your going to GR though, haven’t been back in a few years and I miss it.
Your Grandmary reminds me a bit of my maternal grandmother who used to offer up some feisty opinions about times and presidents past during family visits. Though I never asked about her favorite, it was clear she was always firmly in the FDR camp.
If I had to pick the best Repub president of the past century, Ike would probably top that very short list, given his Scotus picks, but I can’t elevate him too much given how he elevated the crook Dick Nixon, twice, as VP, and also let the CIA run wild, a major problem area of gov’t that Kennedy fought to rein in. Also the awful advice he gave to JFK on SEAsia (go in with US combat troops to Laos), then in 1965 to LBJ, seconding Johnson’s inclination to escalate in VN, a very important policy endorsement that LBJ highly valued as he made the final decision to escalate.
Grandfather 1 – dead when my mom was 5
Grandfather 2 – dead when I was three
Grandmother 1 – dead a month before I turned 18
Grandmother 2 – dead when I turned 13
It’s been a long time since I had grandparents.