Revenge or No Revenge?

Some of my granddaughters have been visiting for the past two days. Unfortunately, I had to go to work. Fortunately, Larry was home so while their parents were golfing, Larry entertained the girls.

Yesterday the girls got up at a leisurely 11:00 am. He packed them up and headed to the Downtowner, where breakfast is served until 2:30pm. Then they took off to Goodwill, where the girls tried on clothes to their hearts' content. They bought nothing but had a great time.

These girls lust after getting to shop at second-hand stores. They usually go with their mother to the mall and new clothing stores to shop. I got so amused on Sunday night when they begged, "Mom, please take us to yard sales! We never get to go!" At their age, I would have given anything for the opportunity to buy new clothes, but in our large family we were lucky to get one new outfit to start the school year, and by the time I was twelve I was buying my own clothes with my babysitting money. So my granddaughters are the exact opposite, wanting to shop for vintage clothes and "cool stuff" at yard sales and Goodwill. I hope my daughter-in-law understands the dynamics of teen reasoning--if you don't have it, you want it, is basically how it works.

We spent Sunday evening cooking and visiting--barbecued chicken and corn on the grill, sliced tomatoes and cucumbers, butter potatoes, and blackberry cobbler. After dinner, we browsed through the old pictures and letters I'd bought at a yard sale on Saturday.



After dinner, we browsed through the old pictures and letters I'd bought at a yard sale on Saturday.

The old spoon is the one found when Mr. Wyant was digging a grave for a friend in Henderson, WV, some years ago. We think it might be tin or pewter. My imagination wants to say it was a spoon bought from a traveling pack peddler. It could have been, you know!

The girls' imaginations were caught by the little soap operas revealed in the letters--a girl who went out on her "fellow," another who dreamed of a box of chocolates that when opened proved to be full of spiders, but her boyfriend fed them to her (sounds like a nightmare to me), another young man chastising his girl for having her picture taken with another man, another that announced the typhoid scare was past. So many long-ago dramas played out by people who remain a mystery to us, but they came alive through those letters.

Yesterday the girls got up at a leisurely 11:00 am. He packed them up and headed to the Downtowner, where breakfast is served until 2:30pm. Then they took off to Goodwill, where the girls tried on clothes to their hearts' content. They bought nothing but had a great time.

After shopping they went on another adventure with their Poppa Larry--down Tug Fork in Jackson County, home of the rumored headless ghost dog. You can read the story in one of Ruth Ann Musick's collections of West Virginia Ghost Stories (I think it's in Coffin Hollow, but I'm not sure).

The evening was filled with volleyball for them, blogwriting for me, then dinner at our favorite (and only) local Mexican restaurant. I fell into bed at midnight


but the girls were going strong, playing with their dog Benson,



getting air mattresses out and pumped up (my guest furniture lives in a tote in my closet until visitors arrive), watching movies, and catching up on Facebook.

At 5:00 am--that's FIVE in the a.m.--I woke to the sounds of giggling and crunching. Bleary-eyed, I stumbled into the kitchen. The girls were still awake! and eating cereal! At FIVE A.M.!

"Hey," I snarled, "some of us have to go work! BE Q-U-I-E-T!"

"Okay, Granny," contrite little voices sang. I bet when I turned my back and left the kitchen there were more giggles and a few this-is-what-grouchy-granny-looks-like faces. Which at their age, I'd have done myself.

I was back up at six to get ready for work. I looked in on the girls and this is what I saw:

Awwww. Aren't they sweet? Should I have shouted and yelled and made lots of loud, rude noises to wake them up? Should I? Revenge would be so sweet...

Nah. How often will I have the chance to see them like this in the future? Seldom, I'm sure. They're early teens now and the years are passing quickly. I will keep these pictures to remember them as they are at this moment.

I let them sleep. And grinned all the way to work, remembering.