Larry had built it from scratch. The body looked rough, but the engine was a piece of mechanical art that would have made Mario Andretti proud. When Grandma Kobbeman plopped her ample backside down onto the wooden seat and then stepped on the accelerator with her heavy brown oxfords, that little engine threw itself into world cup competition.
We cousins watched from a distance as she outran us in the first ten seconds. Grandma whizzed past three dozen giant pine trees, flew across the makeshift track Larry had made and then sailed right into the park's baseball field. She would have made a home run except she missed second base by fifty feet. She barely missed the popcorn stand and then headed straight for a forested area that led directly to the river. Both arms flailed in panic as Grandma's heavy oxfords pressed even harder onto the accelerator. She yelled, “Stop this thing! How do I get it to stop?”
As she headed for a row of poplars, narrowly missing two oversized oak trees, she must have experienced total body panic. Both of her legs shot out in front of her as she released them from their death-grip on the gas pedal. She quickly came to an abrupt halt in front of the sacred Indian mounds at the edge of the water. Chief Black Hawk would have been proud.
Grandma walked back to the picnic area, gathering up steam for the next two hours, during which time she barely took a breath while she told and retold the story of her go-cart adventure to all the relatives and even some strangers who happened by.
For a woman who grew up on a small farm in Illinois and watched our country change from horse-and-buggy to men-on-the-moon, Grandma had adapted remarkably well. The automobile, airplane, indoor plumbing, industrialization, mass production, frozen foods, space travel, civil rights and women's rights were all born during her lifetime. From horse-carts to go-carts, Grandma displayed a keen sense of humor, an unbridled spirit of adventure and a deep faith in God that I will always be glad is part of my heritage.
Somehow, as I walk through this world as a single parent, I draw strength from Grandma Emma. I have raised four spirited children of my own and am now a single grandmother of eight. I've ridden an alpine slide down a steep mountain, put my life in my daughter's hands on the back of her motorcycle on a busy California highway, snorkeled in two oceans, taken a sunrise flight in a hot-air balloon over the Arizona desert, and traveled alone for two days on two planes and two buses to arrive in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to attend the wedding of a woman I'd met only once.
As far as I'm concerned, I've just begun. I think Grandma Kobbeman would approve heartily that I hope to go parasailing, explore the African continent, hike the Great Wall of China and go white-water rafting. I can almost hear Grandma up there cheering me on, “There's no way we want to stop this thing!”
Patricia Lorenz
T
he purpose of life, after all, is to live it, to taste
the experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly
and without fear for newer and richer
experience.
Eleanor Roosevelt
My forty-five-year-old daughter, Sue Ellen, had been surfing for a couple of months, trying to entice me to go to the coast to try it. I kept putting her off, thinking,
Why
would they want their almost seventy-year-old mother tagging
along on this younger person's junket?
“It will be a great girls' weekend out,” Sue Ellen coaxed.
The plan intrigued me . . . and scared me half to death!
I kept being wishy-washy about the possibility, hoping Dad and I would follow through with our plans for a fall trip and I'd have a good excuse. When this didn't seem to materialize, however, I reluctantly penciled in the date on my calendar.
My forty-one-year-old daughter, Diana, and two grand-daughters, ages eighteen and twenty, were all psyched up to go as well. But Diana kept saying, “You're nuts to try this, Mom; even I'm afraid of getting hurt.” Sue Ellen, on the other hand, was saying, “Go for it, Mom. You can do it, and you'll always be able to say that you surfed for your seventieth birthday.”
Well, that did it. My better judgment took a back seat, and I was determined. My husband just rolled his eyes and said, “I hope you know what you're doing!”
In the weeks to follow we all did our exercises and lifted weights to strengthen our wimpy muscles. One day when I stopped at Sue Ellen's, she motioned me into the dining room, where she had tape on her hardwood floors marking the foot placement on a virtual surfboard. She demonstrated the “pop up” procedure, where with one motion you pop up from a flat position on your stomach into a crouched position on the surfboard. Next thing I knew she had me on the floor doing a paddling motion with my hands and arms, then shouted, “Pop up!” Well, let me tell you, I felt like a newborn calf trying to stand!
The actual day arrived and, with gear and food packed in the car, we drove to Cannon Beach on the Oregon coast. We headed for the local surf shop to get outfittedâwetsuit, booties and gloves first. Next, a surfboard to suit one's size and ability. A short board is for the more experienced surfer. The long board gives a longer surface to manipulate, which was more my speed. This whole idea was becoming more of a reality every minute.
The surf coach we hired met us at the shop. Tony, a rugged, blond surfer type, was very laid back and comfortable to be with and seemed to enjoy our little group.
We followed him a few miles down the road to North Beach, which was in a more protected cove where the wind wasn't as strong and there were not as many rip tides with their strong undercurrents. We each unloaded our surfboards, strapped on a backpack, and hiked a mile or more down a trail, through the woods to the beach, pairing up to balance two surfboards between us.
It was a beautiful, warm, sunny weekend, and the area was crawling with funny-looking people in form-fitting wet suits. We donned ours there on the beach and draped all of our clothing over huge driftwood logs that had rolled in.
Tony was very safety conscious and spent a lot of time on the sand teaching us safety measures and surfing techniques. We learned how to lie on our boards, pop up to the crouch position and do a little two-shoe shuffle to balance and stand upright.
The waves were four to six feet high that first day, so I opted to stay on the beach and video the others. The second day, the waves had subsided to two to three feet high and I was ready. “You'll be up and surfing in no time!” said Tony.
He led us out through the surf and into the swells and held my surfboard while I got on. Lying on my stomach, I started paddling like mad. He gave me a push just as a big wave hit me. I remembered to pop up into my crouch position and I sailed like a bullet in a big whoosh of water toward the beach. I squealed with delight that I was still on my feetâthat is, until the fin on the bottom of my board hit the sand, landing me right on my rump. I came up sputtering and coughing like a wounded pup, still leashed by the ankle to my board. Sue Ellen was on the beach filming me coming in. The girls and Tony were all clapping and cheering me on as I limped back to the beach, stifling my sobs of pain.
Gingerly, I perched myself between two logs so I wouldn't have to sit on my tailbone, which was steadily pulsating and throbbing. After collecting myself for a while, I thought the cold seawater would help, so I very slowly made my way across the beach and back into the water.
Standing sideways to the waves so as not to jar my posterior, the cold felt good on my bruised bottom. Just about then, Diana came sailing by on her board, thrilling to her latest ride in on a big wave . . . on her belly! “Diana,” I said, “I can't bend over to get my board, but if you can get me headed right in the waves, I bet I can do that! I didn't come here to sit on a log all day.”
I caught a few good waves belly-boarding, then was happy and proud to leave it at that. Tony said he was surprised that I'd gotten up the first time and stayed up that long; many of his students didn't even make it up the first time. A little praise did wonders for my bruised ego, if not for my bruised bottom.
After several hours of fun in the surf, it was time to leave. We trekked across the beach, up over the rocks on the bluff, and hiked the mile through the woods. It hurt to lift one leg up over the moguls, but with Sue Ellen giving me a pull from her end of the board, we got to the car and were mighty glad to be there. Those pillows for the ride back to Portland felt mighty good.
After about a week of a painful posterior, I checked in with the doctor. “Just badly bruised,” he said. I've had a lot of fun telling the story, from my doctor who said, “You did this how?” to the nurse at the injury clinic who said, “At your age? Wish I dared to try that!”
A sensible senior perhaps I'm not, but in spite of having to sit on a pillow for a couple of weeks, I'm glad my good judgment temporarily took a back seat, that I took the challenge and had this fun “senior moment.” I read somewhere that “Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well-preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out and loudly proclaiming, âWow! What a ride!'”
It certainly was a ride to remember with daughters and granddaughters. They're each ready to ride the waves with gusto at the slightest mention of “Surf's up, Grama!”
Pam Trask
G
randmothers are a special gift to children.
G. W. Curtis
Brian banged the door behind him and ran into the kitchen holding his new toy. “Grandma! Come outside and try my pogo stick!”
I shook my head. “Grandmas are breakable, Brian. I'd better not.”
Disappointment drowned his hopeful expression, and he slouched out of the room. As I watched him go, my memory rewound to my own childhood.
In 1952, I'd been sent to stay with my grandparents. My little sister was gravely ill with something called “acute hemolytic anemia,” which I could barely pronounce, much less understand. Mother's hands were full as she juggled nursing chores and chasing after my brother, an active preschooler. At ten years old, I was deemed responsible enough to travel alone the length of the state and not be “too much trouble” to Grandma and Grandpa.
I'd never traveled by myself, never been away from my family and never attended a city school. But there I was on an airplane bound for Portland, where my grandparents were waiting.
Grandma looked the same every time I saw herâround, firm and fully packed into a corset. She wore dresses and “sensible” black lace-up shoes, and she confined her flyaway hair in a bun at the back of her head. Born in Sweden some seventy-odd years before, she never quite conquered her Scandinavian accent.
Once we arrived at my grandparents' house, I settled my belongings in the familiar upstairs guestroom. The thought of having to make new friends and fit in with a strange fifth-grade class dimmed the joy of being at Grandma's without having to share her with my brother and sister.
The night before I started school, Grandma rolled my straight brown hair in rag strips so I'd wake up with curls. As I fell asleep, my head felt lumpy and so did my insides.
The next morning, jagged icicle teeth grinned at me from the eaves outside the bedroom window. Rattling and clanking, the radiator hissed in the chilly room. I huddled close to it and reached for warm clothes.
Grandma had laid out a brown plaid skirt and yellow sweater, along with a pair of brown wool kneesocks. I pulled on the skirt and sweater, but left the kneesocks untouched on the bed. Everyone at my old school wore anklets. Grandma's arguments couldn't persuade me to change my mind. I was sure I would be branded as weird if I showed up wearing stockings cuffed at the knee.
When it was time to leave, Grandma went along to enroll me in school. We walked to the corner of her block, then headed downhill on an icy sidewalk, following the same route my mother had taken when she was my age. All too soon the building loomedâthree terrifying stories of stone, with a fenced playground facing the street. I watched children arriving ahead of us. They were cutting around the end of a wrought-iron fence and scooting down a snow bank onto the playground.
Suddenly I didn't want to continue on the shoveled walk that bisected the fence and led to the wide front doors. Everyone on the playground would see me and know I was a stranger.
“Please, Grandma, let's go this way.” I tugged her toward the shortcut. “All the other kids are doing it.”
She didn't hesitate. “Come on then,” she said, easing around the end of the fence.
We traipsed to the snow bank and together plowed down it full force. Grandma slid on her backside, then sprung to her feet at the bottom, never missing a step. Clutching the strap of her handbag, she kept pace with me as though we were both ten years old. My bare legs were cold and wet; my Buster Browns filled with snow.
Our descent probably lasted just seconds, but those seconds were enough to install me in my new world. I walked proudly across the playground with Grandma and up the steps into the school.
Thanks to Grandma's courage and sense of adventure, I belonged.
Now, standing in my kitchen, I reconsidered my grandson's request. I called out the window, “Brian, let's play on that pogo stick!”