Thinking of you

It's my Granny's birthday today; she's the only one I've ever had. And since I've been thinking about including some more pictures on my blog, I thought this was the perfect opportunity to some things that remind me of her. A caption, a blurb of Ganny, if you will. Pictures taken 1000 miles away that show that she's close to me wherever I am.





This first one goes with a story that Granny told me when we were driving home from Lufkin one day. If you'd like to read the whole thing you can look back at a previous post. My main memory was laughing with Ganny harder than I've ever laughed before.





This one's inevitable, every time we set about to make gravy with Granny (or rather, watch her make the gravy) we have a big laugh about how the gravy grows while she's cooking it. Let me show you what I mean:

::Granny making some rue with steak grease and flour, sometimes she gets one of us to stir while she to the fridge for butter and lettuce::
::Granny comes back to the gravy and begins to add flour, and then goes off to the oven::
"Now, y'all will have to remind me about the rolls so that I don't forget 'em!"
::onlookers eye the gravy, portion still under control::
"Canny, will you mix up some tea?" Granny asks ::coolly adding more flour::
::the girls get ice from a hoary machine in the recesses of the freezer while Dad walks forward::
"Isn't this gravy too thick?"
"Yes, yes it is, Scooter can you get me some milk?" ::out comes milk::
::the onlookers eye as the gravy pan is engulfed in a white torrent::
"Oh the bread!" ::Granny comes just in time and eyes turn from the glistening lake of gravy to the hot rolls::
::the cooks returns:: "Alrighty, now we'll just put a little more flour in to thicken it up"
"Oh granny, the gravy looks great."
"Well, let's just add a bit more I know it's almost there..."

By meal time, with our two gallons of gravy, Granny is sure to exclaim that there is enough for Cox's army. I'd much rather have a picture (and a taste) of Holcomb Gravy right now, the best I could do was share a photo of the always-absent gang who were supposed to be there helping us eat. Sorry that we never got to meet them, Granny, but I'm sure they would have loved it awful much.





Well, it's just a can of hair spray to most of you, but it was something that we could always find in Granny's bathroom cabinet, and I remember sitting around with my sister one day and playing with that can, making up stories in our mind of which letters we'd press to take us away to exotic Australia. I've started to use more aerosol hairspray myself (as opposed to, ah hem, nothing at all) but when I get a purple Aussie in my hands, I know that the original ones belonged to Granny, and I remember how the littlest things in her home could conjure up magic for us.





Of course, Granny has made us somewhere near 0.84 tons of breakfast, lunch, and dinner by now. Whenever we've been off on a trip, and now when we visit from Indiana, it never fails that we find fresh milk or Bodacious BBQ or roast and cornbread smiling in the fridge. But back before that, back when it was the greatest adventure of all to spend a night at Ganny's house, there was Alto Gumbo. But what was ALWAYS in this fine dish that dismayed the heart of a 1st grader? Lima Beans. It's true. Although I'd just adore those old beans now in my seniority, I'm afraid that they were meticulously extracted back then. But I think that the tradition will carry on, as I plan to make my kids some Alto Gumbo some day, and then I shall eat it with relish!





And I know that is is one which Granny should know at once, not from the fact that I bugged her her about it to no end when I was 11, but that it belonged to her mother, Verna Holcomb Black. I hadn't had a real locket before and I loved the smooth, weathered face and large, simple frames for pictures. But though Granny was very proud that I liked it (which only increased when I found out whose it was), she refused my perpetual requests to keep it. 'Til finally came my birthday, and I opened a gift where the locked was resting on a new chain. Now I save it for special days, and take it out to wear every birthday. If ever there's a fire in our house, I know what I'll grab before hopping out the window. Some things are irreplaceable.