hoarding-part 3

     the above pic is dad (actually my step dad) , and my grandma at some sort of a mob function. not really sure it is a mob function but undoubtedly from another fashion era. dad kinda looked like frank sinatra a little in this pic as he wore his turtleneck sweater under a blazer. a look in the background is someone i don't know with a dark shirt white tie, and sunglasses, and it looks like my cousin joe with the neck brace on . the ascot hat i believe was popular then. i see another guy with one on also. my guess would be sometime in the early 80's. grandma was alone so it had to be after grandpas death as i could hardly remember a picture taken they were both not in. 

      grandma had worked most of her life , spending the majority of it working right here in our area at the sparta ceramic tile corp. in east sparta. she worked there for 28 years , and she also worked at a couple of other places including the hercules corporation during world war 2 as a rosie the riveter type person only pushing a hand truck instead running rivets through sheet metal . at the time her and grandpa both worked there with grandpa drilling and tapping heads for submarine engines .  they had bought this farm i am living on in 1942 and both were working hard to pay off debts as that was one thing grandma could not stand and that was owing anyone anything. always scraping to get by but at the same time trying to maintain an air of respectability. her and grandpa were never dressed at less than their best when it came to church on sunday morning or any family events. 

       grandma would forbid grandpa his chew for the day. having gave up cigarettes for chewing tobacco grandpa could hardly ever be found with out a wad of tobacco  stuck in his cheek . but come sunday morning grandpa would spit it out and don a cigar for church services. grandma and grandpa were always dressed respectably and were always respected by all who come to know them . after church grandpa would loosen up and on the way home from church , slip in a well deserved chew and begin the next week. i only tell all of this as to let you know that sometimes as i am sure you have seen in your family also that there are always 2 sides to a person . the public and the private side. 

       before grandpa had died relations between the church and my grandparents had withered after an event in the church which left a distaste among my grandparents for this church in particular. after grandpas death they reached out to grandma but the damage had been done and grandma had no longer associated with the church. secretly i feel grandma missed this interaction as she loved the pomp and circumstance of church as well as the regimentation of knowing what sunday morning was for. she rarely visited any church after the run in with the last one. we missed it to as it always grandma and grandpa that would take us and then all of a sudden it wasn't there. we had questions why but it wasn't ours to know what had happened. it was only later in years that i had found out it was my grandpa and warren bowman who had started the church and began to bring in the visiting preachers of the first church of christ , just north of east sparta. it was one of those travelling preachers that sought to remove mr.bowman and grandpa as deacons of the church in a power struggle that left grandpa and mr.bowman alienated from congregation at the time. they had started the church and suddenly they were not fit to be in charge or maybe to old . it forever changed grandpa and grandma's life. so grandma turned to her family now more than ever for her company in her later years. 

     we all like to think how important our lives are at given points in time. in a fleeting moment we pass off a chance to visit a loved one such as a mother or grandmother who is alone after seeing their spouse die or it could be a father or grandpa for the same instance. after all we had spent what seemed like an eternity to us when we were kids waiting to be old enough to get the hell out of the house. so to spend very little time blowing off a visit to the older ones , only seemed like a casual nod to the fact you should visit but knew you were not. and suddenly when you do visit you notice how much older and slower in movements they have become while you were absent. time is something you can not take back , what is gone is gone and all you have left is memories . i spent a lot of time talking to her and yet it never seems enough to fully understand where she was coming from. 

      there is a time when grandma entered a dark time where she was fully capable of taking care of herself and at times it seemed as if she resented the fact you were not there. that somewhere along the way you also got a life , and you could not visit as often. she replaced me with a wood cutter who would come and schmooze her for a hunk of land to sell his firewood on. then there was also the hunters who would come and  again schmooze grandma for a chance to hunt on her farmland. free firewood and gifts of penny candy were the fares to ply her acceptance in allowing you to do whatever. another farmer offered to farm her land and soon she was in awe of his ability to do what we no longer could do. a little here and a little there other folks came to know grandma . she soon found another life and it made her independent and all the more easier to understand why she was like she was at the time. she had replaced her family for the most part with a family of strangers. she quit going to the doctors and made sure she took her vitamins daily. she became more aloof and weeks would go by at times without seeing anyone in the family directly. she took to scavenging for things around the farm resisting the urge to go buy new things . left over garage sale clothes replaced store bought items , including to big denim overalls as she called them found in a pile of yardsale items . this she would tie with a a piece of baler twine . a to big shirt with a noticeable paisley print that looked awful familiar to me. this shirt later on would seem all to familiar to me as it was a shirt i had wore when i was kid of 16 and had my picture taken in it. it apparently had ended up in the garage sale stuff mom had left in barn and grandma had scavenged it and was now wearing it in front of me at times. covered up by an old denim coat ragged and torn . this was the new grandma , who needed no one ,  was on a thrift binge , and was gradually setting herself up for an unwanted intervention from the family. it was at this time her saving had become worse than ever . her house was about full to the limit and grandma didn't know what to do with the stuff she was accumulating anymore. more next time.