NPJane is my youngest (and definitely cutest) “cuzzint” on the Fin side of the family. She was born when I was eight and I don’t think I have ever been snotty to her. I was old enough when she was born to understand that, as an infant, she needed love and attention and maybe protection, not teasing and snottiness, like my brother The Engineer and my cousin Jay (her sister) usually had to endure from me. Of course now Jane is an adult, albeit not quite as baggy and old as yer favo-rite blahgger.

Last night she stopped by The Landfill just long enough for a glass of whine and somehow we got off on the tangent of our grandparents. I think it started by reminiscing about their house (hope that link works, streetview was acting a little funky earlier). We both remember the closet that connected the front hall with the kitchen. It was used as a pantry and NPJane remembers walking through it. I maybe might have done that once. Otherwise, I remember you could enter it from the kitchen but either the door at the other end was blocked or we were discouraged from walking through it.

In general, I probably remember the house better than Jane does, mostly because it was, oh I dunno, 8-9 blocks away from my house up in Sault Ste. Siberia (Jane’s family lived here on the Planet Ann Arbor). We had many Sunday dinners (at noon, after church, thank you very much) over there and The Engineer and I often stayed there when The Commander and Grandroobly were out of town at “bank meetings” or other boondoggles. And we used to be forever driving a big ladder back and forth between our houses. The Commander would drive and my dad would hold the ladder outside the passenger-side window. Betcha you couldn’t get away with that these days… Anyway. I remember the pocket doors that led into the living room (double living room) and Grandma’s cart full of African violets and sliding down the carpeted stairs and some little game that I would play with the doorbell chimes behind the glass front door. The attic was verboten. That was where my grandmother’s eccentric younger sister resided. A mysterious place, as was the pass-through pantry.

The thing that we realized as we were talking was that I remember a different set of grandparents than Jane does. Because by the time Jane was born, the grandparents were getting quite elderly and I don’t think they were as interactive with Jane as they were with me and The Engineer. The grandparents I remember were active participants in my upbringing. We loved staying with them, not only because they would buy us just about anything we asked for at the grocery store or wherever but because we were comfortable with them. I’m kind of running out of words here but it was obvious that they cared about us very much. I am wracking my brain trying to remember them disciplining us. I imagine they had to, especially if I was tormenting my little brother. Mostly, I think we tried to be on our best behavior and, if they had to resort to discipline, they must have been very gentle with us, which is probably why I don’t remember it. Love.

As we were talking, I realized that some of my older cousins probably have yet a different set of grandparents than either Jane or I. In fact, if I’m not mistaken, my grandmother was not far off from my age now when she began having grandchildren. And that brings up all kinds of what-ifs in its own right although we won’t head off on that tangent.

By the way, the baby my grandmother is holding in that old scan is not either NPJane or yer favo-rite blahgger, it is none other than the mean old Mr. Grinch. Who is a few years older than me but has always been a cousin I’ve been particularly close to. It started when we had a fight over a package of smoked fish in the back of my dad’s (or granddaddy’s) car. I can’t remember which, I only remember that there was cigar smoke in the air. Oh, and Duke must’ve been involved because my dad did not like fish. I was three and the Grinchie was six. Go figger.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 29th, 2010 at 7:17 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.