Grandma Fish Basket

     I was around two or three years old when I had my first memory of my Grandmother.  She had a dusty smell of moth balls and dust mixed with the sweet smell of VO5 hair cream.  I have memories of her rocking me while I’m seated under her arm on the couch.  When I learned to talk I called her Granny or Grandma.  She has fine white hair and creamy white skin; if only she were darker she would look like an old Indian woman.

     Sitting under her giggly and soft white arm, I would play with the fat under her arm.  Granny often redirected my attention from the cold, soft and squishy flesh to the intricate pictures of trees, bicycles, birds and old fashioned dressed people interacting in scenes on her dress.  “Find the little birds”, she would tell me.  And later would use the same tactic when my sister and I would argue in the backseat of her old station wagon.

     Her dress was antique looking, even for the 1980’s; scrawled with various types of trees on a pale light green background.  There were red birds and blue birds and when I was old enough my Grandmother would keep me busy by having me count as many of the two different colored birds as I could.

     I have a lot of fond memories of my Grandmother, with her white hair, old dress, pink hair curlers, fake pearls and the dusty old moth ball smell of her apartment mixed with the smell of the VO5 in her hair.  I’ll never forget her or the fond memories with her dress and the birds.

     Grandma often gave us bags of pennies before we would leave her house from an overnight stay when we got a little bit older.  Our parents would have date nights and we had quiet evenings with our Grandmother watching Hee Haw and The Price Is Right. 

     Grandma lived in a detached old garage that had been converted to a small apartment so she could rent out her home for extra money.  Grandfather died before I was born, so she needed help paying the bills.  Her bathroom and kitchen was never fully finished so when we visited we had showers in an unfinished shower and used the bathroom by sitting on a five gallon plastic bucket in the bathroom.  She never did buy a working toilet.  The shower however had only cold water and only Grandma would get in it most of the time.  We were young enough to bathe outside in the summer.  During those long and hot summer days when we were elementary school age, we spent hours playing the Dukes of Hazard with our cousins, Jeffery and Andrea.  Near the end of the day, just before dark, to wash off all the dirt and sweat my Grandmother would bathe me and my sister outside with our cousin Andrea while Jeffery played nearby, often sneaking a peek at us girls bathing in the aluminum tub outside in the yard.  Grandmother would fill the tub with water warmed on her gas stove. 
 

     When our baths were done, Grandma would make us something special; she made good, country home cooking.  She made chicken and dumplings that we loved and they were one of our favorite meals.  And sometimes we would have Grandma's favorite, white rice and butter drowned in a pool of tomato juice.  She also made each of us kids a mason jar of powdered milk which she got monthly for free from the government and made chocolate milk with dried powdered cocoa or chocolate and sugar.  It wasn’t real chocolate milk but it was all she could do and we loved it.

     I remember many trips to the laundry mat with my Grandmother and little sister.  Grandma would take my sister, Christina, and I into the laundry mat to put the clothes into the washers.  All assorted by color and sorted by delicates.  After all the laundry was loaded into the washers she would take us to McDonalds for lunch.  We would eat a fish sandwich with pickles and tomato added, and usually shared a drink and fries between my sister and I.  Grandma Ruth, her full name was Ruth Corrine Creel Brazzell; Creel was her maiden name.  Grandmother was part Indian, or at least that is what our family says, and the name Creel means fish basket.  Once we learned this, we often called her ‘Grandma Fish Basket’.

     Grandma’s lunch was often a fish sandwich as well (isnt' it ironic, fish basket?), with the tomato and pickles, but she would always scrape off the tartar sauce due to her milk allergy.  Later, when I was an adult and eating a fish sandwich, I remembered my beloved Grandma Ruth, and her scraped off tartar sauce.  I wondered by she just didn’t ask the McDonald’s employee to emit the sauce from her sandwich.  She clearly had to alter her order by adding pickles and tomatoes; maybe she didn’t want to push too far by asking for something else.

     As we ate our lunch in the car with Grandma, we parked under a large old tree in the back of the parking lot.  This tree was big enough to cover our car fully in the shade.  After eating our sandwiches, and shared fries and drink with my sister, Grandma would take us back into the laundry mat to put the clothes into the dryer.  As little girls we proudly helped our Grandmother sort, fold and hang all the clothing.  And on the way home, more often than not, my sister and I would start fighting with each other in the car.  Grandma would say, “Look at the blue bird!” and we would search eagerly for the little blue bird that Grandma had seen. 

     I miss my dear, sweet Grandma Fish Basket.