My Grandma .....................................................

My Dad's Mom is five foot ten, a giant for her generation. She is single minded in the best and worst ways. Only a few people get to benefit from this single mindedness. Grandma is fiercely loyal to her select group of intimates and the rest of humanity is seen as potential and likely threats. Needless to say Grandma is a racist. She is sure that the members of the other races, like members of other families, and even certain members of her own would love to get one over on her. Grandma played basketball as a young woman. She plays for her team. If you're not on her team, you can burn in hell for all she cares.

When my father was in school his mother would argue with the principal or teacher even as my dad confessed to her that he had indeed commited whatever crime he was being reprimanded for. She would insist that her son was just taking the blame because he didn't want to get someone else in trouble or make the principle/teacher look bad. It meant my Dad strived to keep his nose clean just to save himself the embarassment of his mother's defense.

Nobody had ever heard my Grandmother speak Polish until the day she ran into some Polish speaking women, conversed at a brisk pace like she'd been speaking Polish all her life and then nobody heard her speak Polish again.

Durring the year after her husband's death my Grandma was living all alone in the Pokono Mountains of Pensylvania. She called her daughter, my Aunt Joanne, to report that a deer had wandered onto her property and died. The law says Grandma is responsible for disposing of the deer. Her mother being an eighty year old woman, JoAnne mades arrangements to come up that weekend and help with the deer problem. She figured the snow will keep the deer from decomposing too badly over the couple of days until she can get away from work and drive in from Long Island, New York to help Grandma find someone to come haul away the deer.

Joanne arrived at Grandmas place and had to ask where the deer was.

"Oh, I threw it away." Grandma answered, as if stating the obvious.

"You threw it way." Joanne must have begun wondering if being alone in the mountains too long had done some damage. "Mom, was this a baby deer?"

"Oh no. It was a full sized buck."

"And how exactly did you throw it away. You weren't able to lift it?"

Grandma again had to help Joanne with obvious as she pointed out the axe leaning against the trash can at the edge of the yard. "Well I chopped him up first. Come on inside it's cold."

I've never gotten along with my grandmother terribly well, but I love the image of her standing in the snow, eighty years old, swinging a bloody axe as she dismembers an animal twice her size.

Most of my images of Grandma aren't as pleasant. I just laugh when, watching me eating my vegetables and rice she tells me, "I hope you don't think I tell my friends that my grandson is a vegan. Ooh, they'd say 'What? He doesn't eat meat? Why wouldn't he eat meat?' They would think you're some kind of crazy. I love you anyway, but I won't tell my friends about you and your vegetables." It's harder to laugh when Grandma corners my Mexican sister-in-law, asking about her families holiday traditions only to suggest merrily that she might be happier celebrating Christmas with "her own people."

I was visiting my dad recently when my Grandma was there. We had a nice dinner, only a few vegan comments and then my dad served some dessert. How the subject of race entered into this peacefull evening I'll never know but my grandmother asked me why so many criminals are black. Not a question that troubles me, I tossed back "Why are so many criminals poor." This set her in motion. "Blacks are poor becuase they're lazy. I've been poor and I didn't become a criminal. It's easier for blacks to get jobs then whites becuause of affirmative action." I actually thought I could keep it simple and unemotional and give my Grandma real answers. As if by respecting her right to ask these perfectly reasonable questions and then asnwering them in a matter of fact way I could cure the woman of her lifelong 'go team' mentality towards other races. Of course this idea was and is perposterous and in no time at all I was getting flustered and raising my voice.

"Mom! Mom!" my Dad got my Grandma's attention. "Mom, what came first, the chicken or the egg?"

Granma looked at her son like he was the biggest fool she'd ever met and answered, incredulously "The Egg!"

Grandma turned back to me and continued her rant but I no longer heard her. My dad was smiling, satisfied with having illustrated a point so perfectly. He stirred his coffee and I let my grandma hate the black race.