What's in a name?

I’m not fond of my name.  My mother loves it, but for me it has been a source of confusion, frustration and embarrassment over the years.  A masculine name for a female in the ‘50s led me to boys’ PE and an invitation to join the Army before women in the military were cool. 

The spelling has been a nightmare.  There is no “i” in it anywhere.  People insist there should be.  My mother insists not.  (My middle name is no better, but that’s another story.)  It has been misspelled by nearly everybody, including my father once and the jeweler who engraved my wedding ring.  I wore that ring for 10 years before it was replaced. 

I use the name as little as possible, only when I must be identified.  I much prefer the monikers that associate me with my favorite people…my grandchildren.

My grandmothers were “Grandmother” and “Gammy.”  Gammy lived near so I suspect her nickname came before I could say grandmother properly.  And I do recall that Grandmother was insistent on being Grandmother.  My own mother tried that.  My daughter had other ideas.  So she is “Maury,” the only explanation being “because I love her.”  Good enough.

I started out as Grandma, but Ashley had two grandmas so I am Grandma J.

Then the dog, the huge lab/Rottweiler christened me “Grammy.”  Yes, dogs do talk or at least people talk for them.  I’ve been Grammy ever since.  To everyone.  I love that one.

Then Kayla painted a sign that says “Gramsy.”  Don’t know how that happened, but it also is pretty cool.

She also calls me Grandmother sometimes when she wants to be emphatic or really get my attention. 

Then here comes four-year-old Daniel, an entity all of his own.  He is autistic and until recently has been non-verbal.  He is coming along very well, but he refuses to say grandma.  We have prompted and encouraged, but haven’t gotten much that sounds like grandma.  He did say “banana” one time, but I’m not taking that.  He calls me “Hubba.”  Maybe it’s an amalgamation of banana and grandma, but it’s mine alone.  And I really love that one.

Now, if they’d only put it on my driver’s license!

The Typewriter

I’m an art journaler.  The word “art” is used loosely.  The word “journal” not far behind.  I found art journaling last summer when I stumbled across a video, and I was hooked.  The art part can be quite basic with craft paint, rubber stamps and stencils.  The journal part can also be as simple as quotes, pithy statements or verses.  I love it. 

My supplies started out quite simple.  Stuff I had on hand.  Kayla’s art paints, Sharpies, rubber stamps left from my teaching days.  Then it expanded and grew like topsy.  Now I have a craft corner (soon to take over the room), a die cut machine, drawers of rubber stamps, bottles of paint, stencils, paper.  And now a typewriter.

I blame Jerry Minyard.  A West Brook colleague and Facebook friend, Jerry recently changed the cover photo for his timeline.  A wonderful quote by C.S. Lewis.  The quote was great, but the presentation blew me away.  It was typed, in broken lines, on a sepia background with faint clouds.  I loved it and decided, on the spot, that I had to have a typewriter so I could recreate it.  True, I could probably have done it some other way, but my art journal guru, Julie Fei-Fen Balzer (whose blog comes email every Friday and I read avidly) mentioned her five “must haves” for art journaling and topping the list was a typewriter.

I went on a hunt.  It was harder than I expected. There were no typewriters on Southeasttexas.com.  Nothing in the Yellow Pages.  None lying abandoned at WB.  EBay beckoned.  I did find a couple in my price range.  The shipping was horrendous.  Those things are heavy.  But finally, I found a candidate.  The pretty, and pretty dirty, little blue Smith Corona Coronet – vintage undetermined – arrived yesterday.   It desperately needs a ribbon.  Amazon complied.  It reposes on my kitchen counter for cleaning and inspection.

Kayla arrived for the weekend and was immediately fascinated by the typewriter.  She had to try it out.  She used up all the paper and was downcast.  I told her to go get a piece out of the computer printer and she lit up like Christmas.  “You mean I can use the same paper!”  She typed and typed and typed some more.  “I did pretty good without a backspace,” she said.  “But it has a backspace key,” I said.  “Yes, but it doesn’t correct,” she replied.  She’s used to the delete key fixing all our booboos. 

She typed on.  The pitiful ribbon continued to give up faint letters.  She called her friend to let her hear the typing.  Friend now wants one too.  “I’ll let you hear the ‘ding,’” she bubbled to her friend. 

Kayla has a cell phone, an iPod, a Nook, a Nintendo DS.  But she is enthralled with an “old school” throwback to an earlier age.

Urban Dictionary defines “old school”:  “The term old school is of English origin and dates back to at least the 19th Century and is used to denote something that is considered to be out of date with current trends/ideas and thinking.” 

I don’t care for the phrase.  That’s my school we’re talking about.  I prefer to think of “old school” as things my daddy used to say.  He would approve some activity I was planning by commenting, “At least it will keep you from stealing hubcaps!”

I dropped this pearl on Kayla one morning on the way to school.  In all seriousness, she asked me, “Grammy, what’s a hubcap?”  We started looking for a car with hubcaps and did not find a single one by the time we reached the school.

There is a generation gap, but an aging blue typewriter has bridged it.