Nana and Pa

I try to call my grandparents on a regular basis, but I don't talk to them nearly as much as I'd like to. Because my plans to go home this weekend were spoiled by the weather, I didn't get to see them. It's now been almost two months since I've been home. They're the only grandparents I've ever really known, and I was the first granddaughter so I guess I've always felt really close to them. The year that SkooterPie and I lived in Morrison was good for many reasons, but I mostly loved being able to see my Nana and Pa any time I wanted to.

So I called up Nana and Pa last night. Pa answered the phone. He usually does, with his trademark greeting of "Yello." He reads a lot, so we talk about books. He likes historical fiction. His favorite subject in school was history, and when he and Nana were traveling all over the country, he said he most enjoyed visiting places he'd read about in history books. He told me they traveled routes all the way up alongside the Mississippi River. I told him that I could see the river from my office. I can walk by and see the barges pushing freight along the river. When it's windy or stormy, the river can look downright choppy, like an ocean. That led to a story about how he's never been afraid of storms. He told me sometimes he'll sit out on the front porch getting nearly soaked as a storm blows through, while Nana is "hoppin' up and down" inside. He told me that when they were first married they lived in a house with 11 rooms, and a storm blew in one night. Pa said Nana tried to wake him up, but he just pulled her close to him and told her not to worry. He wouldn't let a storm get her. Pa reads about three books a week, and Nana had just brought him a book with jokes and funny stories in it, so he's been enjoying reading it. He told me one about an airline pilot who in the middle of an announcement to the passengers, he suddenly yelled "Oh my God!" A few minutes later, the pilot came back on the intercom and apologized for alarming anyone. The flight attendant had spilled hot coffee on him. "You should see the front of my pants," the pilot joked. "That's nothing," a passenger yelled back. "You should see the back of mine."

As I talk to him these days, I find myself listening to his voice more, paying attention to the cadences and rhythm of his speech and the verbal tics and sounds as well as the way he pronounces things. Winder instead of window. That kind of thing. The last time I visited them Pa was telling a story and used the word "haint" instead of haunt or ghost. I wished I had had a recorder with me. SkooterPie picked up on it too. "Your Pa said haint," he said. "That's so cool."

Nana has a great sense of humor too and is also a great story teller in her own right. But she is in no way a push over. And you know exactly where you stand with Nana. I usually end up talking about current events for some reason with Nana. She really pays attention to the news and has a long memory and firm opinions on most things. I was talking to her as I was cooking and mentioned that I had to resort to making spaghetti because it was just too cold this weekend to do the weekly grocery shopping. She laughed and said that wasn't much of a hardship considering how much I love spaghetti. She was talking about the night that the two of them took Lisa and me to an Italian restaurant, and Pa and I finished off huge plates of spaghetti. We were in North Carolina (Raleigh?) with them for about a week. They were working as Olan Mills photographers (one of their many careers). Lisa and I (I think we were 8 and 10 at the time) were excited about going with them because there would be a pool at the hotel, and we were looking forward to swimming the whole time. Last night Nana and I laughed together over the fact that the pool was green with algae and Lisa and I ended up entertaining each other by playing on the elevators. I also wrote lots of poetry. After Pa read my poems, he pulled out of his wallet several poems he'd written. I also remember one other thing about that trip. After overhearing me say "yeah" and "uh huh" to one of their customers, Nana told me that she better start hearing me say "yes, ma'am" and "yes, sir" to adults. She knew how to make it in the world.

That was also the trip that Pa shared the "legend of Falling Rock" with me. He told me it was an old Indian legend about two young Cherokee lovers. But the girl disappeared or was killed or something, so all those road signs that were posted alongside the mountains of Tennessee and the Carolinas were put there by the Indian boy looking for his love. My Pa's a real hoot.