Random Thoughts: The last grandchild story?
This may be my last grandchild story! Once a young grandson was visiting me and we were staying all night in my cabin at the Marion County Lake. A terrific storm came up. We would look out the window and see the yard furniture sailing past like bouncing dolls. I was thoroughly frightened. I could imagine the wind picking up that small building and dropping it in the lake. My grandson was as cool as a cucumber, trying to comfort me and allay my fears. Shouldn't it have been the other way around? We did survive.
I think it was at the same time that I took him to see some baby rabbits (the floppy ear kind). Of course, he wanted one. I couldn't bear to turn those pleading eyes down, so I gave him the 50 cents. I'm sure his parents weren't too happy to have an extra pet, but they did provide a fine enclosed pen for it and he lived very happily several years.
I'm reading "Grandmére" written by David B. Roosevelt, published in 2002. It is the story about his grandmother, Eleanor Roose-velt, and seems to be a very honest, true account of her life — the good and the bad. It is hard to imagine her life. She had five children, all boys except for one girl. She lived through an unfaithful husband's affairs, political tension, a tyrannical mother-in-law, civil rights problems, and the big war. What a remarkable woman! There are many interesting pictures in the book. I always thought she was so homily, but in some of these pictures she looks beautiful.
Let us remember how our independence was won and those brave forefathers who established our first Fourth of July!
— NORMA HANNAFORD
