Grandma Henke

When you are a grandmother with seventeen grandchildren from the age of eighteen on down to one year old, you have constant reminders of the years that are behind you.   

Anna started Kindergarten this past week.  Just look at that happy, beautiful little face.   She is so excited, so proud of herself for being five years old, so full of enthusiasm and information to share with her new teacher.  (Heaven help us for she will share all she knows.)   

I see this picture and I think of my first day of Kindergarten, a day I had anticipated with the same amount of enthusiasm and energy as Anna.  My teacher, Mrs. Gourley was the oldest person I had ever met, if not older.   She had pure white hair, which she wore pulled back in a bun that sat like a little pill box hat on her head.   She wore sturdy black shoes with a small square heal and the pretty little old fashioned dresses that came midway down her calf.  She was a tiny, wrinkled little lady and her voice warbled a little as she talked but she sternly kept us in line and I loved her.   My entire Kindergarten experience barely lasted six weeks as it took place during the summer when the bigger kids were out of school. 

Mother gave me my first permanent wave, a Toni, before school began.  The smell was powerful and it seemed to last almost as long as the curls, which were much tighter than we’d expected.   She gave me the permanent because I didn’t want to go to school with my hair in french braids.   The process of getting my hair braided included buckets of tears on my part as mother was a perfectionist and each small strand of hair was the same size, with even parts and pulled tightly into place.   The first braid seemed to go in much faster than the second, which had to exactly match the one before.   The good thing was they were put in so well they would sometimes last an entire week.    (Just ask my daughter, Kim, if that trait wasn’t passed from mother to child.)  

Each child was sent to school with a small, lap quilt.   After our “snack”, which consisted of two graham crackers and a small glass of milk, we would spread our blankets out on the floor and were instructed to lay on them and go to sleep for a half an hour.   The twenty-five or so quilts looked like they formed a much larger patch work quilt with a small child resting in the middle of each square.    I could never go to sleep.    Perhaps if I had been an afternoon Kindergartner I might have managed it but name me a five year old child who takes a nap in the morning!  I was wiggly and giggly and often I had to be tapped on my head with the wooden yard stick Mrs. Gourley kept near her desk.   (Mrs. Gourley retired right after that kindergarten summer … I hope it wasn’t because of me)  .  

My school wardrobe consisted of a pair of black and white, saddle my the previous year’s Sunday dress.

Oh yes, Anna, I remember when I was five.   I also remember when each of my own children were five also … with either excitement or fear in their eyes as I held their hand and introduced them to their teacher for the first time.   I also remember the big lump in my throat as I turned and walked out the door knowing they would forever more be shared with the outside world.    I was never ready for that and would go home and shed a few tears.

And then there is Aubree who is a senior in high school this year.   She will turn eighteen in December.    Eighteeeeeen!   Times have changed.  I didn’t have an ipod, a calculator, or a cellular phone.   I didn’t have a computer with access to worldwide research on any given topic.  Mine was the day of the bulky, manual typewriter and carbon copies.   We didn’t have access to world wide research with the click of a mouse … nor did we have the ability to print out pictures.   We drew them or cut them from magazines.    We had no clue what our grandchildren would have access to at their fingertips.

However, what I did have in common with Aubree is the joy of friends and school activities.    I felt the confidence that comes with being in a senior, knowing that at the end of that year I would graduate and be considered an adult.   Good old Jordan High School … the Beetdiggers.  

Occasionally I was able to drive to high school and park the old Studebaker Lark in the student parking lot.    I got a perfect score in the State competition in Drama for my pantomime titled, “Harold, Leader of the Pack.”   I loved the football and basket ball games and marched with the “Charlonians” in our gray, woolen, dresses trimmed in red, that came to just below our kneecaps.   I proudly danced my red and gray pom poms with hands covered by short, white gloves.   I believe that was the year my friend ratted my long hair into a “beehive”, which my father highly disapproved of.  

Grandchildren think their grandparents have always been old.  They can’t picture them as babies, and children, and teenagers, or newlyweds.   But our view of life keeps getting bigger and bigger … tied with memories of our past and mingled with the excitement of the here and now.     It is so much fun to be reminded of the good old days through the exuberance of youth.