The Collie on the Calendar

Many years ago there was a small farm just north of a little Indiana town called Angola. And on that farm lived Grandma and Grandpa Aldrich. Grandma Aldrich was a tall, thin woman with rich brown eyes and a smile that would light up a room.  And she made the very best pies in Steuben County, if not the whole state of Indiana.

My Grandma, Sarah Aldrich.

Grandma and Grandpa Aldrich raised two sons and a daughter, all whom grew up and had children of their own.  I was the first grandchild.

I visited Grandma and Grandpa one summer, and Grandma was busy in the kitchen baking and cooking and doing Grandma things. On the wall of her kitchen hung a large calendar, perhaps from the local insurance company or maybe the feed store. I knew it had to be a free one cause Grandma and Grandpa didn't have much money back then. On the top page of that particular month was a beautiful photo of a Collie.

Timmy and Lassie were my favorite TV stars back then, next to Sky King, the Lone Ranger, Roy Rogers, and Gumby and Pokey. I was sure that Collie was Lassie.  Then again, every Collie was Lassie.  Did I mention I can still whistle that famous theme song? I digress.  Anyway, Grandma saw me looking at that calendar and she asked, "Do you like that picture?".  "Oh my yes, Grandma, that's Lassie!" I beamed.

Grandma wiped her hands on the dish towel, and walked over to the calendar, pulling it off the nail that held it fast to the wall.  She pulled open the drawer where she kept all those things that have no other place, and took out a pair of shears.  Carefully, Grandma cut that page out of the calendar.

"How'd you like a puzzle, Barbie?" Grandma asked?  "A puzzle?" I asked, with great excitement!  "I never had a puzzle before!" "Well, let's make you one!" she said.

Grandma went into the other room and returned with a thin sheet of cardboard. She took the lid off an old jar and dipped a small measuring cup into soft flour.  She poured the flour into a ceramic bowl and then added a small amount of warm water, just enough to make a paste.  Grandma gently stirred the mixture until it was silky smooth, then took out an old paint brush and first dabbed it into the paste, then brushed it on the cardboard.  Once the cardboard was covered, Grandma carefully laid the picture of the Collie on top of it and gently smoothed out all the wrinkles with her careworn hands.  She then set is aside to dry.

"How'd you like a snack to tide you over 'til the picture dries?" Grandma asked. "Yay!" I squealed, because I knew what that snack would be, my most favoritist snack in the world, Grandma's cherry pie.  Grandma poured me a big glass of cold milk and cut me a delicious slice of cherry pie with little sugar crystals sprinkled on top.  I was in heaven, sitting there eating my favorite pie with my Grandma by my side, watching the picture of the Collie dry.

It wasn't long before Grandma said, "I think it is ready!". She got her shears out of the drawer and began to cut the picture into many different shapes. Soon, the Collie was reduced to a pile of oddly shaped pieces scattered on the kitchen table.  "Done!" Grandma proudly exclaimed.  "Now what?" I asked.  "Now what?" Grandma said, "you put it all back together!". So Grandma helped me to put the puzzle back together, showing me how to figure out which pieces fit together.  Soon, the Collie reappeared.

Grandma and me still at the kitchen table, circa 1982.

I never forgot the love and care my Grandma showed me that day. She had little money but made me the best present any child could have asked for. A handmade puzzle created simply from a page in a calendar, some flour and water, cardboard, and a little imagination. Life doesn't get much better than that.

Grandma's Table

One of the most treasured members of my family was Grandma’s dining room Table.  Its top was a dark wood laminate and it was surrounded by wooden chairs with soft cloth cushions.  Grandma took great care of that Table, polishing it every week when she dusted the rest of the furniture in her home on the hill.

After Grandpa passed away, I took over the duties of Table maintenance. Screwdriver in hand, I would get on my knees and make my away around the table, tightening screws and making sure Grandma’s Table was secure because a secure Table makes a secure family.

We never used plain table service on Grandma’s dining room Table.  It was a place to honor family. Grandma honored her family with china and silver.  I remember gently taking the dinner plates out of the cabinet, their yellow forsythia flowers and gold rims greeting me every holiday season.  We would set the Table, making sure every flower pattern was just so, the salad plates in their proper position.  The silver would be polished up and placed around the beautiful china, with the forks elegantly placed on paper napkins folded into triangles.  The china coffee cups and dessert plates were stacked on the counter that once held a big aquarium full of black guppies. The candles were lit and the Table was ready to receive Grandma's honored guests.

We were sitting around that Table when news came one snowy Christmas night that one of my grandparents’ friends, a truck driver, missed a curve over by the motel and crashed.  He didn’t make it, someone said.  People gripped the Table for support.  Some leaned on it.  The adults sat around the Table for a long time that night, seeking comfort from the Table and each other.

As elders do in their later years, Grandma began to sort.  She sat with the Table, going through her old black book and pulling out all the recipes she had collected over the years, re-gluing and re-organizing them by section. Grandma took great care to be sure that the surface of her Table did not get scratched while working on her recipe book by putting a nice white linen tablecloth down to keep it safe.

Once the recipe book project was done, it was time to sort out family photos. Grandma brought out several stacks of photo albums and set them on the Table.  The Table smiled, glad to see Great Grandpa Zimmerman and Uncle Cully and Aunt Dorothy once again.  “Oh there is Uncle Chris Christoules,” thought the Table, “boy could he cuss in Greek”. A great sadness was beginning to settle into the Table’s heart, as every year the family dinners grew smaller and smaller.

It was at this Table that my Grandmother sat weeping in my arms, somehow realizing yet not quite believing her life was coming to an end.  After I put her to bed, I lay my head down on that Table and cried.  In the little pool of tears I saw a reflection, first of me, then of my Grandma.

When Grandma left us, we stacked boxes on the Table and sorted for weeks.  I took home everything I could fit in my house so I could have Grandma with me every day.  Her rolling pin, cast iron frying pan, the player piano, her cookie cutters.  But I couldn’t take the Table, I had no room.  The Table along with the rest of Grandma’s life things was soon gone, sent off to be sold at a tag sale.

Around that Table had sat my Grandpa and Great Grandparents, Great Aunts and Uncles, old family friends, all now gone. And when Grandma and her Table left us, our family gathered no more.

A couple years later, I wandered into an antique store in the town my Grandma had lived most of her life, the town in which I was born. As I made my way around the basement I came to a door that opened into a small, dusty, unlit room. And there, with its chairs stacked neatly beside it, was my Grandma’s Table.

I took out my bandana and slowly wiped away the dust, shining it up the way Grandma would have done. And I very carefully checked every screw.