Me And My Grandma

My grandma, or Nana as I lovingly called her, was a wonderful person who I miss terribly and think about every day. It wasn't just that she always had a cup of hot cocoa and an after-dinner mint waiting for me at her little kitchen table for two, covered with a lace tablecloth that she got as a wedding present so many years ago, there were other little things that she did too after I finished my paper route on a cold, blustery winter's evening when all I wanted was to snuggle-up in the afghan that she made especially for me. When I couldn't feel my hands and feet with my nose turning white - a sure sign of frostbite, my nana would always rub my feet with her arthritic hands, kiss my nose, and tuck both of my hands in her apron, still covered with flour from the homemade bread she made just for me, until I was able to feel my hands enough to pick up my cocoa. "Feel better, honey?" she would always say. "You know your nana loves you and she always will. "I love you too, nana, and someday I want to do something special for you."

Sometimes at her kitchen table, I would ask my grandma to tell me about the grandpa I never got to meet. "Oh honey, he was a sweet man, a lovely man with big blue eyes, strapping shoulders, and a smile that would melt the hearts of all the young girls, and especially me. We met at the Coliseum Ballroom in Davenport, Iowa on December 6th, 1941, the day before Pearl Harbor was bombed. Even though I was a very pretty girl back in those days if I do say so myself, I was so surprised when your grandpa asked me, of all the girls there to dance. I must say that it was love at first sight and dance. I'll never forget the song we danced to. It was Sentimental Journey, and I think we both knew that something was telling us that we were in for something good like that song you always play, by who are they, The Hermit's Hermans? When our song was over, he held me in his strong arms for just a little too long than he should have, softly kissed me on the cheek and I kissed him back, something I had never done before."

The very next day as I told you before, Pearl Harbor was bombed. Our country was stunned and bewildered, but mostly angry. How could the Japanese do this to us? What did we ever do to them? Many of the young men signed up to join the services just as soon as they could and your grandpa was no exception. Only a week later, he took at train from the old Rock Island Depot, along with hundreds of other young men for his basic training at Ft. Benning, Georgia. Three months later, he returned to me when he got a week's furlough and we hastily married in a private ceremony, attended only by our immediate families, with him looking so smart and even more handsome in his Army uniform, and me in my off-white chiffon dress that my mother made for me with cute little ruffles on the collar."

"Only a week later after reporting to Ft. Leavenworth in Kansas, your grandpa Richard was sent to the tiny island of Tarawa, a place none of us had ever heard of before, but came to know very well. I promised to write to him every day and to be true blue to him, which I did. One day I wrote to him surprising him with the news that somehow on our honeymoon I became pregnant and was carrying your father. He couldn't wait to meet his baby boy and wrote to me whenever he could, always reassuring me that he was doing fine, had plenty to eat, there was nothing to worry about, and that he would be back in my arms again "just as soon as this damned war is over." A single tear came down my grandma's cheek as she said, "and then the letters stopped coming, once and forever."

A buddy of your grandpa's on Tarawa came to visit when the war was over, and told me that your grandpa died with honor, saving the lives of countless other soldiers when he charged a Japanese machine gun nest, taking out at least 25 "Nips" as his buddy called the Japanese, before he was cut down by a single shot to the forehead which killed him instantly. I never remarried and always place a single gardenia, just like the one I wore at our wedding, on his grave in the National Cemetery on Arsenal Island each year on his birthday, which fittingly I think, was on Flag Day." "Oh grandma," I said, "I'm so sorry for you. I know you loved him very much." "Yes I did and always will. But do you know something? Every time I look into your face and eyes, it's almost like he never left me because you're a spitting image of your grandpa." "I just hope I can be half the man he was, nana, and I'll try my hardest." I know you will, sweetheart."

Many years later, with my grandma's health deteriorating and confined to a wheelchair that she had to wheel herself with her thin, crippled hands when I wasn't there to help, sometimes I shed a tear myself when I saw the oxygen tank attached to the side of her chair as she labored for each tiny breath. When I saw her alone in her room from the hallway before I entered, clutching a photograph of her one true love, I had to compose myself before I came in and hollered to her as loud as I could, "hi, grandma! How are you today? You're looking good. Are you getting enough to eat?" She asked if I was still going to the casino and before I left said something that made me want to tear up once again. "Oh how I miss those days when I could still drive and just be with my friends having a nip or two on the gambling boats playing our favorite slots. But the boats are all gone now and just a memory, just like all my friends. I always said that when I go gambling, I just bring twenty dollars and when that's gone, I leave. I knew one lady, Mrs. Donahue who just couldn't quit and lost everything - her husband of sixty years, her Buick Skylark that she dearly loved, and even her children and grandchildren quit coming to see her because she always wanted to borrow money from them, the poor dear. Honey, did I ever tell you about the time I no more than sat down and won $75 on the first pull? It was that I Dream Of Jeanie machine. Wasn't that a wonderful program?" "Yes, grandma, you told me the story but tell me again. I'd like to hear it." We had a nice visit as always and I promised to see her again soon.

A couple weeks later after working a ten-hour shift in the Heat Treat Department at the factory where I spent 30 years toiling in sometimes one-hundred degree temperatures in addition to the heat from the furnaces in my department, it just happened to be payday so I thought to myself, "it's the weekend and I owe it to myself to have a little fun for a change. I brought my check of $700 and cashed it at the cashiers cage in my favorite casino, The Lucky Sevens, whose slogan was "the more you play, the more we pay." I then walked back to my truck and put 500 of the 700 dollars in the console of my truck so I wouldn't be tempted to get behind and "chase money" as they say. I kind of smiled to myself remembering something an older guy told me one time. "I knew this guy who lost fifty cents at the race track thirty years ago, and he's been trying to get it back ever since." Something to think about that wasn't going to happen to me.

I sat down at my favorite machine, a twenty five-cent Double Diamond machine that had a progressive payout of over $2,800. I put a "hundy" into the machine just drinking coffee my coffee and smoking cigarettes, thinking the whole time about how nice it would be to win a few bucks so I could do something nice for my nana. I played mostly one coin at a time, and just for the fun of it, played two coins at a time five times in a row. On the 5th spin, all three diamonds came up and I won $2,875.32. I was happy of course, but just sat there in stunned disbelief thinking to myself, "holy crap, I can't believe it! Other people playing their slots saw my good fortune and stopped by to congratulate me, but I could see that they were a little jealous, especially this lady about my grandma's age who said that she played that machine for three hours and "didn't get squat."

After a hand-pay with 10% taken out for federal and state taxes, I had some real money to play with and decided to play a little craps, hoping to win enough to buy my grandma that self-propelled wheelchair that she so desperately needed and deserved, but I was still $7,000 away from the cost of the chair.

I walked up to the craps table, laid down $2,000 and told the base dealer, "put it all on the hard eight" which pays eight to one. That would give me enough for grandma's wheelchair and eight thousand for something I liked. A guy at the end of the table was shooting and I hollered out, "come on, shooter! Grandma needs a new pair of shoes.!" The guy looked at me like I was nuts and asked, "don't you mean baby needs a new pair of shoes?" I said, "don't worry about it. Just throw the dice. "Five, no field five," the stickman called out. And then "nine, centerfield nine." "Six, easy six. Would you like to press it, sir?" "Come on, hard eight!" I thought to myself, and then "eight...."

I rushed to grandma's nursing home just as fast as I could get there because I knew she would be down for the night by seven o'clock. I got there in time just before her meds. "Have you been to the casino again, honey?" "Yes, grandma I have been." Well how did you do...?" as if knew the answer already. "Well, grandma. I've got some good news and some bad news for you." "You might as well give me the good news first..."I brought you something special that I know you like - a Butterfinger malt from Whitey's!" "What's the bad news, honey?" "I bet $2,000 on the hard eight but it came up easy."