Courtney Kroeger
3rd Hour
Mr. Jennings
Due: December 12, 2013
Crazy Old Granny
I have called my grandma crazy old granny ever since I can remember. My older sister gave her this nickname as a young child while playing one of her first card games. My sister, Miranda, was sitting around a big old wooden kitchen table playing a game of golf with my aunts, mom, and grandma; when she noticed she had a perfect hand. Excited, she picked up a card that is normally a keeper because it counts for zero points, which is the point of the game, but she knew she would do better without it and so she discarded it. My grandma, thinking she had made the mistake any young child would do when they’re first learning a card game, tried to fix that mistake for her. But, Miranda put up a fight and eventually when she was almost in tears my grandma let it go. Finally, nearing the end of the game she shows her perfect hand, looks straight into my grandmothers eyes and in her high pitched voice says, “I told you I didn’t need it crazy old granny!” My aunts were taken aback and my mother scorned my sister but my grandma just sat there laughing and laughing. After that, she signed all of her birthday cards and holiday wishes “Crazy Old Granny”, and so it stuck.
The name is surprisingly accurate for the little white haired women;but it took me many years to start to notice the similarities. She is rather crazy, but it’s the “I’ll do anything” good kind of crazy. Seriously, what grandma would on a whim get her first tattoo at the age of 71 with the reasoning of, “people always say when you’re young that if you get a tattoo you’ll regret it when your older, but honestly, how much older can I get? And if I get any more wrinkles you won’t be able to see it through the folds of skin anyway.” She’s the, you never know what she’s going to say next, kind of lady;she gets it from her moonshiner father. He was a real practical joker who would do anything while drunk and he was especially good at talking someone else into doing performing some not so good ideas.
When my granny was younger, her father had a really good friend named Joe. Him and Joe would make moonshine in the backwoods of Tennessee where she was born and get drunk off their booty’s. One time, when they were walking home, they watched a cat skulk by and he turned to Joe and said, “I’ll lick that cats a** if you will.” Joe in a drunken haze took a moment to think and discuss it with him, then after much persuasion, did. Her daddy of course never did but got quite a kick out of it while it was happening. He was also able to talk Joe into letting him try to shoot a cigarette right out of his mouth while indoors and under the influence. In the end, Joe did not die but my granny grew up with a hole in her screen door.Her father’s attitude and mindset must have rubbed off on her while growing up.
My granny was born and raised in the deep woods of Tennessee, with the closest town Dover, Tennessee. Her closest neighbor lived a half mile down the dirt road and she didn’t have any electricity until she was nine years old. She was the youngest of eight brothers and sisters and out of all 3 brothers and 4 sisters she was the only one to finish high school. She lived a traditional southern lifestyle, eating Sunday breakfast with her whole family where they would eat fried chicken, potatoes, eggs, fresh cornbread, and more potatoes. Her mother was the glue to keeping all those hooligans together and cared for. She took care of their chickens, cooked all the meals, made delicious jams and jellies, sewed all of their clothes, and never used a pattern or recipe. Her rough, strong hands were always doing something, having a kid in school every year for 31 years, and while not in school keeping the kids from killing each other. She kept the crazy from turning into pure madness and instilled all of her hardworking values into my crazy grandmother.
Being the youngest, my granny was the baby doll. Her older sisters would play with her and take her around teaching her how to sew, cook, and clean, while her older brothers put a shotgun into her hands as soon as she could stand up. She would need to learn early to stand a chance at beating her brothers shot. It was said that her brother E.D. (E.D. didn’t stand for anything, his full name was literally those two letters) could throw a nickel in the air and when it hit the ground it had a bullet hole straight through it. The only person who could rival it at the time was her sister Margaret, and boy was she a spit fire. When my granny was first born my great aunt Marge almost tried to drown her because she didn’t want to have to take care of another baby in the family, luckily her momma came to the rescue. I wouldn’t call that the good kind of crazy but she eventually grew out of that faze. Now a day’s they are the closest friends, my great Aunt Marge is my dad’s favorite aunt and she is the only one I’ve ever met. She is the sweetest old southern lady who can tell a joke that will want to make you pee your pants.
Eventually, my granny was able to get out of those wild backwoods and moved to Nashville, Tennessee for a summer. It was her first time in a city and thought the idea of specifically laid out roads were weird and all the noises made it hard to sleep, but she loved it. She was pleased to move back to Nashville and was working in a bank when she got a call from some young man who had been by her family’s house looking for her. His name was Bob and he had remembered her from years ago when he came by the house to buy some moonshine from my granny’s father, she was sixteen at the time and he was 21, married and about to head off to war. When he came back, he wasn’t married and he wanted her. She didn’t actually remember him but because her family knew him she said it would be okay for him to visit.
He came down to Nashville when she was 19, knocked on her door and asked to take her out. She of course obliged and they were off into the night. They went to Printers Alley which was a street full of night clubs and bars and he asked if my granny had ever been to a strip club, and after she said she hadn’t, he asked her if she would want to go to one. Surprisingly, she said yes and they went to an illegal strip club (it was actually owned by the governor at the time which they decided made it less illegal) for their first date. I might add my granny later found out my grandfather only asked her to go to the strip club to see her reaction and was thoroughly shocked when she said yes. They had some fun and by the time she was taken home her roommate decided Bob was far too intoxicated to drive home. He spent the night on their couch and when the next morning came they’re first date turned into a two day affair with her calling off work and them going fishing. A few months later they were engaged on Christmas and married in January. I guess my grandfather decided that if a girl is willing to go to a strip club on your first date, you better snatch her up fast. And if anyone was perfect and crazy enough for my granny, it was my grandpa Bob. However he was crazy in a different way.
He’s the guy where it’s his way or the highway and he would go insane if you didn’t listen to him. At one point when my Uncle had a dog and my grandfather was working at his house, my grandpa was bending over; the dog came up behind him and poked him in the butt so hard that my grandpa fell face first onto the floor. My grandfather yelled at the dog and told it if it didn’t go away he would sock it in the face. He bends over to work again and the dog comes up behind him and pokes him in the butt again. My grandpa goes face first to the floor except this time instead of getting up, he tackles the dog and starts throwing punches and beating it up. The dog thought he was playing and starts play biting back, it’s a good thing my uncle came in to the room, and what a sight to see, to save that dog before it got killed. I guess my little old granny just attracts crazy.
After they were married, my grandmother moved to the bitter cold winters of Iowa and away from her family where she had my father, my Aunt Lee, and my Uncle Link. They stayed in a small town where they moved to a haunted house, which to this day they still refuse to talk about. Even when I said it was for a homework assignment they wouldn’t give me any answers. Something was eventually the final straw and my grandma packed her bags and told my grandpa she was moving out of that house and if he wanted to stay with her he would come along. She relies very strongly on the feelings she gets at certain places and the feelings of that house made her go even more insane. Eventually, they retired in Kentucky with a ½ mile backyard, where I went on tractor rides and fished on the lake; it was my favorite place in the entire world.
My sister’s youngest childhood memory is in Kentucky, standing on a stool, early in the morning, helping my grandmother mix a chocolate pie filling. We could always count on her to make the best food, all from scratch and with lots of butter. In her words, “butter makes everything better.” If we ever ate bagels or waffles she would toast them and then smother them in butter, she’d then sit down with you and most likely whoop your butt in a game of cards, she still does except now she lives back in Nashville, Tennessee. She has all of the perfect grandma-y traits of buying you gifts, cooking you food, and is willing to do anything you want because she can have fun doing whatever. Along with the most amazing things like bringing you back present’s form China and Europe, always being able to make you laugh, and of course telling you all of the hilarious stories from her childhood. I have never met anyone who loves life so much, she is a person I truly admire and want to copy with my own life.
I love my crazy old granny. She has come from the backwoods of Tennessee with barely a high school education, but that didn’t stop her from working hard to provide for her family and now being able to travel the world, she may not have had electricity until she was nine but she got a Facebook before I did, and she may not be loved by anyone outside my family but she will always be remembered by me, because a person as crazy and full of life as her deserves to be remembered by someone.