Granny’s Storytelling Ways

Read here or listen at my substack post.

It started when I asked my grandmother a simple question.

Granny never answered a question straight on. So when she launched into another story that seemed to have nothing to do with what I’d asked, I sat back to enjoy the tale, knowing she’d eventually get to the answer I’d requested. This is the story as she told it:

You know how I loved to read when I was a young girl. Well, back up of the house in Fredonia there was a patch of woods with a tree that was easy to climb and had a spot perfect for sitting with a book. I knew there were other children who played in those woods, I’d heard them when I was up there reading, but I’d never seen them and I thought of that tree as mine.

Well, I was mature enough at nine to babysit some and one day I watched Mrs. Cabana’s children while she went shopping. When she got home, she didn’t have enough cash left to pay me, so she handed me a bag of Milky Way chocolate bars she’d meant to have for trick or treaters come Halloween. I loved Milky Ways. I didn’t really want to share them with my little brother or sister, so I took them to my reading tree and hid them up in that notch that was perfect for sitting. I didn’t dare eat one because I had no way to close the bag, and I knew I’d get sick if I ate them all. So I left them there and went home for my book and a twist tie and decided on a piece of string, too, to let them dangle from a branch so critters wouldn’t get into them.

As I got close to my tree with my book, the twist tie and string, I heard voices. So I snuck up and peeked from behind a bush. Two boys, about my age, were looking up into my tree and someone up there was shouting “You guys won’t believe this!”

I had a sinking feeling in my stomach and started wishing I’d taken that candy home, or at least opened it and eaten some.

Sure enough, this gangly redheaded boy clambered down the tree with my candy. I thought it was gone for sure, but there ensued a surprising discussion.

The redheaded boy was all for ripping it open and eating it then and there. The kind of chubby boy was afraid it might be poisoned, left by someone for children to find. The tallest boy, who had the greenest eyes I ever saw, said, “No, we need to put it back. It belongs to someone.” The redhead insisted someone in a hang glider or something might have dropped it into the tree. But the tallest boy eventually convinced them they had to put it back.

The redheaded boy was the one who’d found it and knew where it had been. He stopped at the base of the tree and tried one more time. “Don’t you think we could at least each have one?”

The tallest boy just shook his head.

The kind of pudgy one shrugged, probably thinking they were avoiding a grisly death.

I chewed on my lower lip, trying to decide what to do. If I stayed in hiding, they’d put it back and eventually go away. But I could see where they’d begun building a fort out of branches and stuff nearby, so they’d be back for sure. How would it go when they found out it was my reading tree? I didn’t want to give it up. The redheaded boy was halfway to my spot in the tree when I stepped out from behind the bush.

“Bring that back down here,” I called. “I’ll share some with you.”

Granny smiled, my cue that the story was done.

“That tall boy? That was your Grandpa. We were friends from that day on, and when we got older it just seemed natural for us to go on being a pair.”

I smiled at the lady in the seat next to me on the plane.

“As soon as she said he had the greenest eyes she ever saw, I knew that was Grandpa Tommy – and probably his buddies Sean and Charlie. See, I’d been thinking about proposing to someone I’d met online a few months earlier, but I wasn’t sure if I was in love, or just tired of being single, and I’d asked for Granny’s advice in figuring that out. Her story got me thinking about a girl I knew in school, a really good friend. Facebook made it easy to find her. We got chatting and that’s who I’m on my way to see.”

“Good luck to you, then.” The lady chuckled. “You do realize I just asked where you were going, right? You’ve inherited your Granny’s storytelling ways.”

   I guess I have.