Whistling

A storm front went through around noon today. We had some rumbling thunder and about half an inch of rain. The rain came down hard enough a couple of times to interfere with our TV satellite signal. During the first interruption, I caught myself whistling “Singin' In The Rain”.

I don't claim to be a good whistler – in fact, probably no one but me would know what the song was. Inside my head, though, the tune sounded right.

My grandmother, though, was a very good whistler. You didn't have to wonder what the tune was, it was always nice and clear. I may have heard her sing a time or two, but whistling was her musical “go to”. I never heard Grandad do anything musical, either. Yet musical ability runs in the family – I always figured it must track back to Grandma's whistling.

I always enjoyed going to Grandma's house, whether it was for a week in the summer or for our every-other-Sunday visit after they moved back closer. I was in fifth grade when Grandad had surgery on his hips and was in a body cast for six months. He was never able to work after that. That same year, they sold their house in Jefferson City and moved back to Carroll County.

I enjoyed the fact that their new house was in town – it wasn't quiet. I got used to the train tracks being just a couple of blocks away from their house. It was a small town, so I could go out and take a walk by myself. When I stayed at Grandma's house in the summer, we would walk downtown to the grocery stores. There was also what she called a “dry goods store” - one year when the weather turned really chilly while I was there, she bought me a nice pair of khaki pants from that store.

Grandma had two sisters who lived nearby. One of them lived on a farm and raised vegetables to sell. When she made her rounds in town, she'd stop by Grandma's and leave her any fresh veggies she might have left over. I always enjoyed seeing her.

One of the things I enjoyed at Grandma's was the bathtub. No kidding. We didn't have running water, so I would really enjoy that bathtub. Sometimes there would even be bubble bath to use. I remember all too well one summer when Grandma was using Dove bath soap. That was my one and only time using it – I broke out in an allergic rash not long after my bath. It was the middle of summer, and the little oscillating fan in Grandma's spare room was hardly enough to keep down the itching. I was pretty used to my allergic reactions, but it had Grandma worried.

There was a big walk-in pantry in that house that fascinated me. That, and the walk-through closet between two bedrooms. Grandma kept off-season clothing in that closet and used one of the bedrooms as a storage room. But I loved checking out that closet – especially after the day I was looking back there and found a stash of magazines that my mother would never have left me read! Yes, my Grandma had a stack of the “true secret” type magazines! I was very surprised......though probably everyone knew what I was doing when I would sit in that closet and read them. In reality, I didn't learn many life lessons from those magazines, it was mostly the thrill of thinking I was doing something that I shouldn't!!

Throughout my junior high and high school years, we would make that drive every other Sunday after church. Grandma knew the schedule we kept – and quite often my uncle and his family were there too. We had a lot of good times eating lunch around Grandma's table. Grandma would wash her hair in the afternoon and Mom would pincurl it for her. It was nothing out of the ordinary – and yet it was very, very special.