You can see she's a beautiful girl
You know your grandma really loves you when you go to her place for her birthday and she insists on sending you home with a care package consisting of stuff from M&M Meats and the leftover home-made sauce and meatballs with spaghetti she made you for dinner.
Grandma S. is 87 today.
My sassy gram was born in 1922 in the same house she lived in until her 70's when the once prominent German neighborhood got too rough, so we moved her into a cute apartment downtown near where I live.
'Cause she can beat yr ass with words, but she's a lady and ladies don't mingle with hoodlums.
My darling gram lived an idyllic childhood that consisted of wholesome activities like skating at the rink on Redwood and Main in the winter to ballroom music and seeing two movies, a short, and a cartoon with a box of popcorn for a nickel at the Starland Cinema.
When she was in her 20's she moved to Thunder Bay with a girlfriend and worked in a factory making shell casings for bombs during WWII until the war was over and she came back here and met my Grandpa who swept her off her feet with his smooth-talk and good looks and had two babies, one of which is my dad.
She's lived through times of enormous change and even though she still uses words like "Negro" and "Fags" she doesn't mean to offend, no. She's just a product of a bygone age when women never left the house without heels and a skirt or at the very least pressed slacks and when you could leave your doors unlocked at night.
She'll never read this because she can't use a computer, doesn't want to. She's smart as hell but in a well-read, worldly way and if you have a question you can bet your bottom dollar she'll give you the best advice you can find and give you a Revello and a hug afterward.
Grandma S. would give the world to see you smile.
And she means the world to me.
Happy birthday Grandma, I love you so much.
