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    Grama--Tell Me a Story
    Grama--Tell Me a Story
    Grama--Tell Me a Story
    Ebook72 pages56 minutes

    Grama--Tell Me a Story

    By Meredith

    ()

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    About this ebook

    GramaTell Me A Story is a Folklore volume. My worldmy formative years between five and eight years old took place in a small Western Washington Town of mild climatemuch rain. My grandmother, mothers mother, 60 plus, lived with our family of five: Mom, Dad, myself, my sister (three years younger), my brother (five years younger).
    Mom was a housewife. My father worked in the local creamery. We lived in an old turn of the century (19th) house with a big, long wrap-around side porch on a large corner lot with an oak and fruit trees. Dad kept a large vegetable garden.
    Three cousins who lived near, a neighborhood girl, the grade-school just down the block, Sunday School and Church were my world (1937-1940). I believe it was a wholesome place and timerebuilding after the Depression.
    My grandmother liked to tell us about her early life in Western Pennsylvania Dutch Country. Grandma was orphaned at three when her mother died. Mary Elizabeth grew up living with one Aunt and Uncle after the other.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAuthorHouse
    Release dateApr 18, 2012
    ISBN9781468553314
    Grama--Tell Me a Story
    Author

    Meredith

    Meredith is the author of many other novels: Concrete Jungle Iscariot’s Kiss Strange Fruit Negro Spiritual Cinderfella No Ways Home Burning Daylight Acoustic Soul Detroit native, Meredith is creating and defining his own path in the Hip Hop urban fiction publishing world.

    Read more from Meredith

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      Book preview

      Grama--Tell Me a Story - Meredith

      Grama–

      Tell Me A Story

      title%20page.psd

      MEREDITH

      ah1.jpg

      AuthorHouse™

      1663 Liberty Drive

      Bloomington, IN 47403

      www.authorhouse.com

      Phone: 1-800-839-8640

      © 2012 Meredith. All rights reserved.

      No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

      Published by AuthorHouse 4/11/2012

      ISBN: 978-1-4685-5332-1 (sc)

      ISBN: 978-1-4685-5331-4 (ebook)

      Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

      and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

      Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

      Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

      Contents

      Preface 

      I 

      II 

      III

      Contrary Clarence 

      IV 

      V 

      VI 

      VII

      Jim, The Crow 

      VIII 

      IX 

      X

      Psyche,

      The Psychedelic Sunbeam 

      XI 

      XII 

      XIII 

      XIV

      Archie Meets Oscar 

      XV

      Epilogue 

      This is dedicated to my Grandmother,

      born Mary Elizabeth Estes,

      1873 in Pennsylvania, died at the age of 91 in Washington.Mary was a spirit of sunshine.

      Preface 

      V00_9781468553321_TEXT.pdf

      For me, estrangement embodies the depth of sorrow. Oh woeful, woeful day! Uncontrollable tears rushed to my eyes upon reading the end of Longfellow’s, Evangelin. Tears overwhelmed me the same when I read and again when I saw the end of, Zhivago. Maturity made little difference. I was thirteen, an eighth grader when Longfellow’s aged betrothed found her intended in the arms of death. I was thirty plus when Uries’ daughter explained how she was separated from her mother: He let go of my hand. In that one instant she lost her mother and her whole heritage. And she was just one of many orphaned in the Russian Revolution.

      I believe it is difficult to understand the devastation of this loss of loved one, parent, family, heritage, if we have never experienced it. This privilege of belonging, of place, of natural instantaneous gratification, knows no bounds.

      Even in the best of families with good natural communication, much is lost, missed, or only partially related. Rare it would be for any solitary individual to give all of himself to another or others. So if this is true, those who lose early on must salvage scraps at best.

      My Grandmother had such an experience: orphaned at three, her family dissolved. Her mother left four sisters, a brother and herself. They were all farmed out to relatives. Grandmother’s oldest sister begged to keep the family together, but she was voted down by the older and wiser.

      For Grandma, responsibility and self-reliance had come fast. Standing alone, fighting back, claiming her own, was not a choice but a necessity. It required an elasticity of character and a cunning wit. The touch of imagination that continued to hope developed out of this poverty of condition. This imagination is what I admired most. She poured into it all the tenacity she could muster, always catching hold of a good amidst the worst.

      Grandma told the very best stories. Her childhood years in Pennsylvania when she was a girl were live, real, vital pictures of the past and they improved with each retelling.

      This is Grandma’s legacy. Here are her memories of that struggling age in our country’s history when foreign languages were not acceptable, gratifying or laudable. English was the language. Melting into the patterns was the design. Forging together to become a part of the whole, building a new mainstay—this was the business. Children were seen and not heard. The age they started to earn their keep depended more on their particular circumstances then on any consensus of opinion as to their age and fitness.

      These are no mean memories. They are clear, sharp, live scenes come to life once more: set out on her stage—ever so keen and true. These are the memories that stuck, that held, that stayed. Those that made the greatest impressions had to be kept, cherished, treasured, and sometimes embellished. They are hers in her time.

      They disclosed her practicality for the here and now, the softness and hardness of her judgments, her limitations—near-sighted and farsighted, and her particular joys and woes. Most of all, the uniqueness that was Grandma made up for and did pardon for all her shortcomings and failures. Grandma was vibrant and healthfully selfish.

      I believe this early loss caused Grandmother to remember all the scraps of her life and hold them

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