So I’ve been posting reminisces about my grandparents lately. Here’s one of my favorite ones about Grannie.

A couple of years ago I moved to Saratoga Springs NY, and shortly after I went to a family barbecue at my Aunt Melissa and Uncle Danny’s house, and Grannie was there. It was one of the few times I had seen her in years and years. At one point most folks went outside – I think the kids were roasting marshmallows or something – but in any case Grannie stayed inside and I sat there shooting the breeze with her, trying to get a sense of what she was doing those days. The fact that she was still driving came up, and given her age it was a little surprising, and I said so. She got a twinkle in her eye in response and said ‘yes, and I don’t use the brakes!’ I gradually got out of her that she would leave her house, head to her hairdressers, which was down a steep hill, and try not to use the brakes on her car because she enjoyed zooming as fast as gravity would take her down the hill.

!!!

I thought this was pretty funny. Picture a woman in her 80’s with a grin on her face zooming down a hill and maybe you’ll see the humor. But I also think it speaks to something I said about Grannie in one of my other stories about her – she was still enjoying life, and getting a kick out of it, at her age, something which is often not true of the very elderly.