This is not my real grandmother's picture. (This picture looks so much like her-representational purpose, only)
Grandmother (daddy's mother) took me to see my first movie. She loved to get dressed up and go out. I loved the big-screen. However, she told me to cover my eyes during the scary scenes.
On my second visit, gra-ma had moved to another home. She enrolled me in a local school near her. It was a short bus-ride away, near Busta Mante park (details in book).
I was anxious, to learn how to read, because I wanted to know what the cartoons were saying in the Sunday paper. Within two weeks, I was reading the comic strips. Yes, I was pleased.
Her new place was set in a huge yard with separate little attached homes, with a court-yard in the center of it (layout drawing in upcoming bio). As you enter her new home, from the gate; on the right side is an L shaped veranda. Then leading down a long path to a little cottage straight ahead. In front of it was a flower garden.
Across from which was another garden, alongside the veranda on the right side as you walk down into the yard. Towards the rear of the courtyard there was a separate cottage where lived a beautiful, dark skinned lady by herself. Behind her little home were huge, towering trees that extended from behind an old fence.
To the right of the courtyard, were different convenience rooms in a row along a plain concrete veranda with wooden posts that held up the roof. Unlike the front veranda with its shiny, polished tile floor. The convenience rooms were bathroom, kitchen, toilet room, shower room(detail in upcoming book).
There was even a one-room apartment where lived a fat blind grandmother.
I felt sorry that she was often left isolated in her dark room. So I often visited her to keep her company and entertained with small talks. Her relatives would sometimes take her to the center of the court-yard for sunning, or set her outside her room in a rocking-chair.
Gramma, seemed to move back and forth a lot. I remember, her moving from the one-room home with the big veranda to the two-room cottage across from us facing the front gate, and back again, in that same yard. Anyway, I took on the job of watering the gardens at that home. I remember feeding left-over rice to wild birds, daily. Then trying like a cat, to catch them as they ate.
On one occasion, I remember gramma's friend speaking with her about me, "Mrs. Harris, your grand daughter's hair needs cutting, so she can put on weight!" Gramma's response was, "Oh, no, she is just a picky eater." The woman enquired about my age, "Then how old is she, about eight? " (I felt upset that she guessed me to be older!) Gramma said, "No... about 7 years old." The woman remarked, "She is tall for her age, but Lord the hair is sucking her, you have to cut it, so she will gain some weight." What you use on it, Castor oil? "No, nothing but Vaseline, Castor oil is too stink."
The weight of my thick un-straightened plats (braids), laid on my chest and down my back like ropes. For church my hair was platted in two, with the front half combed back from my face, over the plat behind my head, and adorned with ribbons.
I guess my delicate frame, gentle oval face and big almond eyes, made me look as if my hair was getting all the nutrition.
Please leave a comment.
Thanks
On my second visit, gra-ma had moved to another home. She enrolled me in a local school near her. It was a short bus-ride away, near Busta Mante park (details in book).
I was anxious, to learn how to read, because I wanted to know what the cartoons were saying in the Sunday paper. Within two weeks, I was reading the comic strips. Yes, I was pleased.
Her new place was set in a huge yard with separate little attached homes, with a court-yard in the center of it (layout drawing in upcoming bio). As you enter her new home, from the gate; on the right side is an L shaped veranda. Then leading down a long path to a little cottage straight ahead. In front of it was a flower garden.
Across from which was another garden, alongside the veranda on the right side as you walk down into the yard. Towards the rear of the courtyard there was a separate cottage where lived a beautiful, dark skinned lady by herself. Behind her little home were huge, towering trees that extended from behind an old fence.
To the right of the courtyard, were different convenience rooms in a row along a plain concrete veranda with wooden posts that held up the roof. Unlike the front veranda with its shiny, polished tile floor. The convenience rooms were bathroom, kitchen, toilet room, shower room(detail in upcoming book).
There was even a one-room apartment where lived a fat blind grandmother.
I felt sorry that she was often left isolated in her dark room. So I often visited her to keep her company and entertained with small talks. Her relatives would sometimes take her to the center of the court-yard for sunning, or set her outside her room in a rocking-chair.
Gramma, seemed to move back and forth a lot. I remember, her moving from the one-room home with the big veranda to the two-room cottage across from us facing the front gate, and back again, in that same yard. Anyway, I took on the job of watering the gardens at that home. I remember feeding left-over rice to wild birds, daily. Then trying like a cat, to catch them as they ate.
On one occasion, I remember gramma's friend speaking with her about me, "Mrs. Harris, your grand daughter's hair needs cutting, so she can put on weight!" Gramma's response was, "Oh, no, she is just a picky eater." The woman enquired about my age, "Then how old is she, about eight? " (I felt upset that she guessed me to be older!) Gramma said, "No... about 7 years old." The woman remarked, "She is tall for her age, but Lord the hair is sucking her, you have to cut it, so she will gain some weight." What you use on it, Castor oil? "No, nothing but Vaseline, Castor oil is too stink."
The weight of my thick un-straightened plats (braids), laid on my chest and down my back like ropes. For church my hair was platted in two, with the front half combed back from my face, over the plat behind my head, and adorned with ribbons.
I guess my delicate frame, gentle oval face and big almond eyes, made me look as if my hair was getting all the nutrition.
Please leave a comment.
Thanks
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