Ada Pearl

My grandma. I didn't see her much, but I have vivid memories of her. All are good. I've already talked about her once in an earlier post with her dog "Hey you" and all her other animals. I also mentioned her in this post, with the old tin lunch boxes in her basement. But that's just the tip of the iceberg.

She lived in an old, small, white house on top of a mountian in Cumberland, MD. There was a big grannysmith apple tree out back. The front porch had that old, green, fake turf stuff on the floor, and there was always a fly swatter nearby. In front of her house there was a plot of land for grazing and the highlight of my day was to see the cows come up close to the barbed wire fence to where I could pet them.

My grandma used to save pennies in a huge jar for me. So whenever we'd go visit her in Cumberland, she'd give my brother and sister 50 dollars each...in cash. She'd give me 50 dollars...in pennies. It was annoying, but special. I can still remember sitting in her living room rolling old, dirty pennies, and the smell of my hands afterwards.

She had an old organ in her house, and loved to write songs and sing them. I would call her on the phone, and after she'd told me 50 million times how proud she was of me, she'd say "Do you have a minute? I want you to hear this." Then she'd preceed to put the phone down, run over to her organ, and bust out playing and singing at the top of her lungs. She was a hoot.

One of my favorite pastime activities at her house was shooting old coke cans and fallen grannysmith apples with the bb gun. I would spend hours outdoors with her animals and the neighboring cows.

Even though I didn't see my grandma much (I think the last time I saw her I was probably 13 years old), and I'd roll my eyes everytime my mom passed the phone over to me to talk to her, I loved her and will always remember her. She was one of a kind.