Grandma Henke

How many generations of little musicians have loved playing chopsticks on the piano … over and over and over?    It is fun to watch my young grandchildren sitting side by side keeping strict timing and laughing and giggling over something my daughters did, I did, my mother did … all as little girls.      Tonight seven year old Luca had her recital up in Washington and we (the grandchildren teach)  will be having a concert of our own later this summer.   I had a hard time not laughing right out loud today as we planned it.  Grace, who is also seven, would like it to be a big affair with costume changes after each “performance”.    She wants to add a little singing to the program, which I thought was a good idea for variety … and then she suggested that perhaps we could also all do the “Can Can”.     I think perhaps I’ll veto the “Can Can”. 

Jiminy Cricket has taken up residence in our house and serenades us every night … totally uninvited, of course.    I love cricket sounds when they are outdoors, but not in my house thank you very much.     He’s a sly little man and has managed to move his one manned concert to a new location every time we search him out.      Tomorrow night I will have to offer a prize to the child who can search him out and carry him outside where he belongs.    I remember the crickets in our house as I was growing up on a farm in Draper, Utah.    Dad got so he could sneak up in the dark and reach out blindly and grab them quick as a flash … then he would put them in the toilet and flush them away.    I hated the black little jumpers back then and didn’t feel very sad at their fate.  

When we first moved here we used to hear the coyotes crying out in the fields at nights, and the owls asking “Who?” from on top of one of the telephone poles behind our house.   We also used to have nocturnal visits from members of a skunk family who must have lived near by.     The dogs in the neighborhood always got involved with them and the smell was sometimes so strong it burned our eyes clear inside the house.   Once we had a full grown skunk come up to our sliding glass door in bright day light and play on our patio and look inside at us … we were very, very quiet and still.

There were frisky little calves and colts running circles around their mothers in the pastures we passed driving to Pine Valley yesterday.  I could watch them for hours … I’m such a sucker for animals … especially mama’s and babies.    One time I saw a cow choking and she had a big long piece of plastic hanging out of her mouth.    I pulled over to the side of the road and climbed the fence in my skirt and nylons so I could go save her.    Fortunately, I didn’t have to do the Heimlich Maneuver … I just explained ed to her why I was there and asked her to hold still while I pulled and pulled and pulled on that piece of plastic and finally removed about ten feet of it from her throat and stomach.   Gross, huh, but she was grateful.

Which reminds me of the time I helped out a Bull Dog who had a bone wedged sideways between his bottom teeth … He picked me out of all the people on the sidewalk and came crying up to me begging me to help him … so what could I do but reach in his mouth, under his tongue and yank the bone free.     I know, I know, it was foolish to do to a strange dog … but he asked me with his big brown eyes and I trusted him not to bite my hand off afterwards.    When it was gone he barked a “thank you” and went his merry way down the sidewalk.

“And that’s the truth.”

Friend, Phyllis, the address you gave me for your blog doesn’t work … neither does the address I have for your email!