Time Spent with Grandma

I was the youngest of two children growing

up in a single parent home and times were

tough for us. Christmas gifts and birthday

presents were often handmade or

purchased at yard sales and secondhand

stores. Mama worked awfully hard to give

my sister and I the best life possible and we

were happy children even though we did

not have the things that other kids had. At

the end of each summer just before school

was to begin mama would take us girls

to the Bon Marche to buy new shoes socks

and underwear, and my sister Deb would

also get new outfits to wear at school. For

me it was a trip to the attic and the big

black trunk that was stored there year-round. The hand me down trunk contained

clothes previously worn by my sister Deb, and my cousin Barb as well as clothes given

to us by mothers of neighborhood children

that had outgrown them. I was happy with

this arrangement and proud to wear my

sisters’ clothes. until I started school that is.

On my first day of kindergarten, I became

hand me down Hannah when Lucy, who

was a year older and a grade ahead of me

recognized my outfit as one she had worn

the year before. In the first grade I sadly

recall a field trip to the beach. On a

permission slip sent home to be signed,

the teacher had written that every child

must bring along a raincoat in case the

weather was bad. I did not own one and

wondered if I would have to stay behind.

On beach day morning Mama ran up the

stairs to the attic and returned with a

bright yellow raincoat that had a duckbill for the hood, and I could not

have been happier. I was having a good

day until Jimmy started crying and told

the teacher that I had stolen his coat. I

was told to take it off and when the

teacher looked inside at the tag it sure

enough had the name Jimmy written in

big black letters. I spent the remainder

of the day sitting under the shelter by

myself, while Jimmy, who was wearing

two coats, one of which was two sizes to

small for him, played tag in the rain with

all the other kids. I was glad when that

school year ended, and summer break

began. One morning that summer I was

laying on the couch watching underdog

when I heard a knock on the door which

I reluctantly got up and answered. When

I did, I came face to face with a woman I had never seen before. She had a

backpack on her back, and a cigar

between her lips. In one hand she

carried a beat-up Stanley thermos, and

her other hand carried a portable

sewing machine. I soon learned who the

strange woman at the door was.

My grandma who had come to live with

us. Grandma became my best and only

friend and we had a lot of fun that

summer taking long walks through the

park, playing crazy eights and at night

we would lay underneath the stars and

grandma would tell me stories about her

adventurous life. I did not want summer

to end, I dreaded going back to school,

back to the taunting I would no doubt

receive. The closer it got to the first day

of school the more down and withdrawn I became and when grandma asked why

I told her how I was always teased by the

other kids because of my secondhand

wardrobe. The next morning, I woke to

the sound of grandma chanting

something somewhere in the house.

When I finally found her in the kitchen, I

was horrified at what I saw. Grandma

was wielding a pair of scissors and bits

and pieces of my clothes were

flying in the air, and all the while she

kept repeating a ditty that went

something like this “don’t hesitate to

recreate all we need is a pair of scissors

and a measuring tape a sewing machine

and a little Jim Beam and we can

recreate anything” As I watched and

listened, I could not help but wonder

who and where this Jim Beam fella was and when I asked grandma, she said he

was her best friend and he lived in a

bottle. I was okay with her answer after

all genies lived in bottles so Mr. Beam

must be a genie I decided. For the rest of

summer grandma cut, measured pinned

and sewed and when school began, I had

a fabulous, recreated wardrobe. That

year nobody called me “hand me down

Hannah” as a matter of fact I was

nominated the best dressed student in

our classroom. By the following year

grandma had taught me to run the little

singer sewing machine by myself and we

would spend hours upon hours looking

through the Sears and Montgomery

Ward catalogs getting ideas for clothing

designs. I have never been so proud as

when grandma gave me a brand-new pair of shiny Fiskar scissors that I still

use to this day. Sadly, grandma passed

away when I was in high school. Today I

am in my fifties and upscale furniture as

a side job, my passion however is in

design. I cherish the memory of times

spent with grandma and value the idea

she instilled in me, that you do not have

to be rich to have nice things, all you

need is a pair of scissors, measuring

tape, a little imagination and a sewing

machine and you can recreate most

anything. I miss my grandma, she was

one of a kind, after all nobody else I

know has a grandma whose best friend

is a genie that lives in a bottle.