Running from Grandma
One of my very first memories date back to when I was three years old to a time when I was in big trouble. Yet again!
In my three-year-old mind, the only way to prevent yet another ass-whooping was to run. Looking back, I’m fairly confident I gave no consideration to how far or how long I would need to run, or whether my time on the lam would require breaks for food, drink, or to pet puppies. Neither did I give thought to what my grandma may do if I were to run. My only thoughts were to “run”.
It’s important for you to know that my grandma and I were outside which meant I had once again been dressed to the 9’s and turned loose in the yard to “play but don’t get dirty”. These instructions were accompanied by the usual dire warning to stay out of the mud puddle beneath the water spigot. The multiple prior whoopings, followed by a bath and change of clothes, were grim reinforcements to the warning to stay away from the puddle. But, naturally, I forgot so I ran…around the house.
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So, here I go, around the house as fast as my three-year-old chubby legs would carry me, my long blonde curls bouncing behind me in the breeze. You see, I wasn’t fast enough for my curls to blow in the wind. I was only fast enough to create a breeze.
I made two good trips around the house, but it was that third trip that failed me. One corner of the back of the house had a cutout to hide a tall scaffold which held a 55-gallon drum of kerosene to heat the house during the cold winter months.
It was as I neared that corner of the house that I realized I had not heard my grandma running behind me for a bit. Surely I had tapped into some unknown inner strength and had begun to increase the distance between us, or perhaps at her age she was just not able to keep up with my speed.
It was while I pondered these thoughts of misguided youth that grandma stepped from beneath the kerosene drum in the L-shaped cutout to snag my little runaway ass and tear me a new one.
I learned a couple valuable lessons from that first memory. Never, ever run from grandma, especially when you’re in trouble. And stay out of the damn mud puddles if she dresses you to the 9's!
