The House of Beth

When I turned 12, my Grandma took me shopping.  She took me shopping a lot, she likes (read: lives) to shop.  But when I was 12, she took me shopping for my birthday -- serious present time for a girl who knows how to stretch a dollar!  I liked to shop with her.  You always went out to lunch, got treats, and of course, the shopping swag.  The price you paid for all the fun was listening to the Lecture whilst the shopping was happening.  Up to this point, I had always decided the lecture was worth a double scoop ice cream cone.  Good things never seem to last, though.

Bellevue 1978

Grandma is not a gentle soul.  Grandma is not a quiet soul.  Anyone describing her as meek would be, well, besides flat out wrong, completely crazy.  There is a cranky, ever-burning spirit of vengeance and determination that powers her spirit through the universe.  It could probably sustain the energy needs of a small metropolitan area, if they could figure out how to bottle it.  So, when you got to go shopping with Grandma, you had to brace yourself for whatever lecture topic was her current rant. Until then, I had always just tuned it out, as small children are able to do. 

When you are a girl turning 12, there are a limited number of issues the rant is going to be about, so it's just a matter of figuring out which way the conversation is going to go and brace yourself accordingly: bras, menstrual cycles, the evils of boys.  None of these appealed at all, not the actual things, not the lecture from Grandma.

We were at Jantzen Beach shopping center, browsing the racks at Montgomery Wards.  Thus far, the trip had been fine.  I was looking at red cardigans.  Grandma came over and scowled at my choice.

"I DON'T THINK THAT'S THE RIGHT CHOICE FOR YOU, JENY." She said.  (This was not yelling, this was her normal volume, audible in neighboring counties.  As I said, Grandma was not soft-spoken.)

"But I like this one.  I like the buttons."  I replied, eying the faux wood buttons.

"BUT IT WON'T FIT OVER YOUR BOSOM.  AND YOU NEED A BETTER BRASSIERE.  WHEN I WAS YOUR AGE, NO ONE TOLD ME WHEN I NEEDED A BETTER BRASSIERE AND I JUST WENT AROUND SLINGING ALL OVER THE PLACE AND ALL THE BOYS WOULD STARE."

At this point, I was trying to fit in between the hangers, or possibly inside the round clothes rack.  Maybe if I crouched down a little further . . . but she kept going.

"WHEN I WAS IN HIGH SCHOOL I WAS IN A SEWING CLASS AND NO ONE TOLD ME I WAS SUPPOSED TO SHAVE MY ARM PITS AND THEN I HAD TO GO STAND IN FRONT OF EVERYONE AND I WAS HORRIFIED.  HAS YOUR MOTHER TAUGHT YOU TO SHAVE YOUR ARMPITS?  LET ME SEE . . . "

At close to a dead run, I bee-lined it out of there.  "Uh, I think I want to try another store, Grandma."

Naperville 1972

We went to lunch and I thought maybe the fervor had died down.  Wrong.

"NOW IT'S VERY IMPORTANT THAT YOUR BRASSIERE FITS CORRECTLY.  HAS YOUR  MOTHER TAKEN YOU IN FOR A FITTING?"  She turned to the waitress.  "YOU LOOK LIKE YOUR BRASSIERE FITS CORRECTLY.  WHERE DID YOU GET YOUR BRASSIERE FITTED?"

I think it was possibly the fastest, most non-intrusive restaurant service we have ever had. And I ate most of my meal with my head about level with the table.  Actually eating under the table would have been nice, but would have brought on a whole new dimension to the Lecture.  Oy.

But another incident a few years later showed me how the pilot light of her zeal didn't necessarily burn with Crazy, but with a never-ending need for things to be right and fair and correct.  (Even if her definition of "right and fair and correct" was actually a bit crazy.)

We were shopping (of course) in Anchorage, Alaska.  My grandparents had moved there semi-permanently, so my parents sent me there for the summer when I was 16.  As we were walking through a mall, we passed a young family: mom, dad, two small kids.

One of the kids, maybe 2 years old, was crying.  I don't know why.  But the dad had lost his temper and was smacking the kid.  The mom wasn't saying anything.  But boy, Grandma did.

"CHILD ABUSE!! CHILD ABUSE!! THIS MAN IS BEATING HIS CHILD!!"

The man was absolutely horror-struck.  "Shut up lady!" He growled.  She gave him back, stare for stare and kept on yelling.  "CHILD ABUSE!! CHILD ABUSE!!!"

Whatever else happened, he stopped hitting his child.  She was not afraid of what anyone thought, of making a "scene."  She saw Wrong and she was going to stop it.

She survived the Depression, their family building homes by hand, then selling the house, and moving to build again.  Her father was a dentist who bartered and traded his service for whatever the family needed.  No one had money, but they could work.

Sacramento 1943

She survived WWII.  Her sweetheart was being shipped out so she put her foot down and said, "WE'RE GETTING MARRIED NOW.  BEFORE YOU LEAVE." And so they did.  It was three years before Grandpa was back, surviving the Pacific Theater and being on the first deployment of American soldiers into Hiroshima after the bomb.  None of those soldiers was supposed to live, but Grandpa did.  He probably knew Grandma would march up to Heaven and demand to be given her husband back, thank you very much.  So, he figured he'd skip dying and just get on with living, since he was going to end up living anyway.

She survived raising my father.  There were 4 kids, my dad is the oldest.  The story goes he was such a stinker and so physically tough that the needle actually bent when the doctor tried to give him a shot in the tookus.  Little Ronnie did not want a shot, so he tightened his little cheeks.  No shot that day. 

She survived innumerable visits and vacations of 18 grandchildren.  And then 37 great grandchildren, including my 5 boys.  Honestly, she pre-medicates before visits with them.  No lie.

On Monday, she turned 88.  And right now, she lies in a hospital bed with tubes and needles connected every which way.  Every time they try to awaken her, she starts yelling at the doctors and her kids and tries to get up and walk, despite a 10 inch incision in her gut and having just had a massive heart attack.  My dad is in trouble for not taking her home "RIGHT NOW."  The doctor is in trouble for not stitching her up the way she thinks he ought to have.  "MY GUTS ARE GUNNA FALL OUT!"  My aunts are in trouble because she wasn't done yelling and they were in the room.

Beth Craner Athay is like no one else on the planet.  The crazy yellow sunglasses in every vacation photo.  The wildly inappropriate meal-time discussions of bathroom events.  Lemon frozen custard and lunch at the Holland.  No one lives forever, but this gal will leave a hole in our universe.

But then again, it's been 25 years since she's had a good holler at Grandpa :D Maybe she's just bored with the rest of us!

 Let 'em have it, Grandma!