NaBloPoMo #6 ~ Grandparents

Today's writing prompt:  Tell us about your grandparents

I never knew my father's father, and from what little I heard about him, that wasn't a bad thing.

I don't remember my father's step-father.  I've seen a picture of me with him when I was quite little, but have no memory of him.

My father's mother was a kick in the pants.   She was this spry little woman; tough as nails.  She ran a crane in the Naval ship yards and her favorite word was 'jackass.'  One leg was shorter than the other, so she was always in this 'hip stuck out' position that looked like she was pissed at something or someone all of the time.  She would swear up and down that her hip was like that because she carried my daddy around too much when he was little.  She was also very superstitious.  I can remember her watching our house and dog sitting when we would go on a trip and she refused to watch us pull out of the driveway and drive up the street.  She said it was bad luck and that if she watched us we wouldn't come back.  (Just what a little girl needed to hear!)  On one of those trips, my fish died.  She didn't know what to do with it, so she put it in a ziplock bag and put it in the refrigerator.  I guess she didn't want to be the one to flush it.

My mother's father was a short little man who chewed RedMan tobacco and gave amazing hugs.  Everyone called him 'Nick' because there was already another guy at his factory with his name and just decided that would be his nickname even though it didn't remotely resemble his name at all.  He would drive my mother's mother nuts because he would have to get a drink of RC cola before they left to go anywhere.  It was always as everyone was headed out (or already out of) the door, he would be headed to the kitchen to grab a little drink.  She used to joke that he would make Jesus wait on him to get a drink before he would go to heaven.

My mother's mother was a prim and proper woman who wouldn't take crap from anyone.  Her hair was always perfectly curled thanks to a weekly hair appointment and she was always in skirts and heels.  She played piano at her church and would make faces of subtle disgust when the choir would sing off key or off tempo.  It was really hard not to laugh during service!  She and several of the ladies from her church would get together once a week an quilt, by hand, these amazing quilts.  Then the husbands would show up and they would all have lunch together.  I loved going to those quilting/lunch days.  I would sit under the quilting frame and watch the needle and thread go up and down, thimbled fingers guiding it from underneath.  Oh, and the lunches...good ol' country cooking at it's finest.

I have fond memories of my grandparents.  They were a part of our lives growing up, even if that meant we would drive ten hours to see them or they would do the same.  With the passing of each of them, a hole was left that could never be filled.