10 Only The Best Grandparents Get Promoted To Great Grandparents

Only The Best Grandparents Get Promoted To Great Grandparents in 2023

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31 Things I Learned on Summer Vacation with My Grandparents

The world will most likely always have swimming pools, foreign countries and Disney theme parks. Do those later. While you have the chance, spend some of your vacation with grandparents or other elderly persons. These experiences enhance one's life.

This is how my vacation always began although, in retrospect, it is somewhat embarrassing to think I still did this when I was 17. I simply could not help it.

Those summer days were spent working in the gardens with my Grandfather (Pappa) or in the kitchen with my sweet Granny. The evenings were passed playing games while we hulled peas. Thursdays were for pot luck lunches with the church's quilting club, Sundays for church and then some good old fashioned "visiting". Day-old donuts cooked up nicely in the toaster oven and when coupled with a bowl of fresh raspberries made a royal breakfast. BLTs were the best lunch. In addition to the occasional trips to the river for some swimming, often with some inevitable water snakes, there were evenings Pappa would take me fishing until 5:00 in the morning. Although by today's standard my grandparents' lifestyle would be considered Spartan and thrifty, I never lacked for anything. In fact, what they gave me has no price.

What I learned during summer vacations as a child:

1. Sometimes raspberries taste like stink bugs.

Who doesn't love fresh berries? Especially those which transfer from vine to hand to mouth in less than one second? Even if one tastes like a stinkbug or has been pecked by a bird, enjoy it nevertheless but do wash it down with a non-tainted one.

Take the good along with the bad because that's life.

2. Frogs make a squeaking noise when they are gigged.

But if you're lucky, after you've "gigged" the frogs and pulled them in, your grandmother or great aunt will clean them right then and there at the park, only to take them home and make you eat their amphibious legs.

Waste not, want not.

3. How to clean and filet fresh fish is a necessary life skill.

This only happens after an all-nighter on the lake. At 6:30 the next morning and after a lesson in how to properly clean your catch, you suddenly find yourself covered in scales and bits of fish guts. Somehow you still look forward to the fried fish lunch.

Wash your hands and face before sitting down at the table.

4. When riding in a car, don't confuse your can of Coke with your grandfather's can of masticated snuff.

Pappa had that wonderfully minty habit of chewing tobacco. When driving, he would spit the chewy glob into an old Coke can. That was about the time I quit drinking Coke.

Look before you leap.

5. Hanging bed sheets to dry on a line outdoors enhances their fresh smell

Nature is more aromatic than any store bought product. That's a no-brainer.

Choose nature.

6. Tire swings can fill with water and then when you swing, your butt gets wet.

This particular lesson is more poignant today when you consider the headlines about our politicians.

Something may be fun at the time but, if you're not careful, it can come back to haunt you.

7. "Hogan's Heroes" was entertaining; "The Waltons" were boring.

That is self explanatory.

Television is an escape and can dull your social skills.

8. Who would have thought you could eat crawdads?

An elderly neighbor named Mrs. Morrisey was a notorious child hater. However, when cousin Cale and I caught some crayfish/crawdads/mudbugs in a river, she wanted them. From Louisiana originally, Mrs. Morrisey showed us how to cook and eat them. Frightened as we were when she ripped their dead heads off and sucked out whatever remained inside, we continued to catch these river bottom dwellers and bring them to Mrs. Morrisey. Eventually I ate one.

Don't be afraid to try new foods.

9. Never try to adjust an oscillating fan in the middle of the night in complete darkness.

Granny's sister, Aunt Ruth, lost part of her finger one night while Cale and I were staying at her house. After being mauled by a fan blade (and I experienced an onset of severe nausea), Aunt Ruth simply said, "Oops".

Always stay calm in an emergency and never let them see you sweat.

10. The elderly love casseroles.

Casseroles must be easier on the teeth/dentures than steak.

Go with the flow.

11. I cannot sew.

Granny tried to teach me how to darn socks, how to quilt and how to make a very nice dress. It just didn't work. For some reason Scotch tape always worked better for me.

Everyone is different.

12. One can, in fact, make a pancake with a potato and a pizza with rhubarb.

Send me an email and I'll send you the recipes.

Make do with what you have and be thankful.

13. Water moccasins love river water.

Swimming in the Ozark rivers and surrounded by snakes (with their little heads sticking out above the water) scared the heck out of me. But if I wanted to cool off, I had no choice.

Don't be afraid to swim with sharks; just make sure they don't bite you.

14. Never leave a plastic wrapped loaf of bread on top of the toaster oven.

Although the melted colored plastic tends to have a rather pretty stained glass looking effect on the toaster, the bread will be ruined.

Common sense trumps everything.

15. Dull knives can cut you; sharp ones cut what they're supposed to cut.

Pappa sharpened his knives religiously each Saturday morning. It was simply impossible to find a dull knife in his house and, as a result, we never ran out of bandaids.

Never be the dullest knife in the drawer; stay sharp and keep learning.

16. There is no such thing as a bad strawberry.

Okra? Yes. Strawberry? No.

Reality is that thing staring you in the face.

17. The only time you should chew gum is during church.

Going to church, Granny packed her purse with Luden's Wild Cherry throat lozenges (in case the sermon was too dry), money (for the offering), tissues (for emotions as well as used gum) and Chiclets. She was prepared for anything.

If you can't really sing and don't know the words to the hymn, just chew gum.

18. A root beer float is God's food.

Ah -- Two scoops of Big Dip brand vanilla ice cream in a glass with A W; rootbeer, a tall spoon and a straw. Heaven.

God created all. Like root beer floats, for example.

19. Turtles don't really like lettuce.

Turtles don't like anything but the freedom of the highway and that is exactly where they mess up.

Look twice before you cross the street.

20. Hot soup is not summer food

Well, it's not.

Learn from your mistakes.

21. Who needs peers when you've got extraordinary grandparents?

I rarely missed my friends those summers. On the other hand, they all wanted to come to Missouri and hang out with the ol' grandparents.

The grass is always greener --

22. When playing card games, make it a point to be the score keeper and you'll always win.

Playing Uno, Crazy Eight or some other game each night, Pappa always insisted on keeping score. Funny thing is he always won.

It's not what you do each day as much as it is the tally at the end of your life.

23. Denture adhesive doesn't really work

Pappa didn't like to wear his dentures. He absolutely refused to wear them unless it was a big feast like Thanksgiving or Christmas. Saying the prayer on such occasions, Pappa always noticed the little kids not closing their eyes. Mid-sentence, he would thrust out his teeth with a bit of a clacking noise, quickly pull them in and resume his prayer. The kids, inevitably, would burst into laughter and/or screams, only to be chastised by their parents who knew absolutely nothing about what had just happened.

Never buy something from an infomercial.

24. Smoking a pipe is almost as much fun as making one from a corn cob.

My uncle taught me how to make a pipe from corn cobs. Then he taught me to smoke.

Smoking is bad.

25. Always make sure the brakes work before riding a bicycle.

My grandparents bought two bicycles from a garage sale one summer. One red, one blue '" they gave my brother the first choice. He chose the red '" which, I might add, was a girl's bike. I got the blue, a boy's bike. "Let's go up the gravel hill and I'll race you down!" big brother said. Never one to back down from a challenge, eight year old me said, "OK!" Fifteen minutes later when my Mom was using tweezers to pull gravel out of my nose and navel, I realized I had been duped. The brakes didn't work on the blue bike.

Never trust a con-artist.

26. Whenever possible, use ½ of a dead minnow in order to catch the biggest fish.

One time, Pappa complained when I baited his hook with half of a dead minnow. (I didn't really want to put a hook through a live minnow.) The next twenty minutes were spent with Pappa standing in the boat and an 18 pound bass pulling the fishing line under the boat, spinning it around at least 4 times. When my grandfather finally landed the fish, it was the biggest one he'd caught in decades.

Quality is more important than quantity.

27. Naps are not only a necessity but also a blessing.

After lunch, my grandparents always took a nap: Pappa on the floor with a stack of throw pillows, Granny on her bed with no pillow. I would follow suit and relax on a bed which was covered with a comforter that had a cottage cheese sort of pattern. Waking with puncture like dots all over my face and legs, I would go outside to shuck some corn.

Even God rested on the Seventh Day.

28. Milking a goat is a hoot but goat's milk is gross.

Spending the night with some friends of my grandparents, at 4:30 in the morning I had to milk eight goats. It was an experience which I have not forgotten. What I would like to forget is my subsequent bowl of Cheerios doused with goat's milk. That so ruined it for me.

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day.

29. Sweating is your body's way of cooling itself off.

My grandparents never had any air conditioning in their house. Did it bother me? Yes, a bit, but mostly because of my hair. Did it matter? Not really because I was with my grandparents.

You can't always get what you want. But if you try, sometimes you'll find you get what you need.

30. Never, EVER, follow the guy in front of you because you think "he looks like he knows where he is going".

Unless the guy is your next door neighbor, you will inevitably end up lost or maybe 120 miles away from home. You might even end up in Arkansas instead of Missouri.

Follow your dreams but not necessarily the guy in front of you.

31. Grandparents and the elderly have so much to teach, if we only would listen.

I was blessed to have had such phenomenal grandparents.

There is not much more to say other than that.