This weekend I had a great conversation about stories and the fact that we love to tell them, but we rarely write them down. Throughout my time blogging I have written many of my stories like the time the guy walked into my house and many more. I would now like to share a few of grandmother's stories. Each week I will tell a fun and quirky story that involved my grandmother. She was one of my favorite people ever and even though she was stubborn, sometimes mean, and a little nutso I loved her with all my heart. She died in February of 2003 and suffered from Alzheimer's/Dementia (It came on so rapidly the doctor's didn't know for sure.). She lived alone from 1989 (when her brother died) until she was 84 (in 2002) even though she was legally blind and generally crabby. Here is one of my favorite stories:
Not My Leaves
As my grandmother got older she decided that she had enough with nature. She used to have an enormous garden, 3 cherry trees, a couple of pear trees, a couple of sycamore trees (I think), six large beds for flowers and a crab apple tree. While I have never understood the crab apple tree, the rest of the trees were pretty cool and they were great to climb. My grandmother began her assault on the trees first because they came with one of the most evil inventions: Leaves. She did not want to rake leaves anymore or pick up the fruit that they produced. Now she was in her late sixties so I can understand her not wanting to do the work, but she probably could have hired someone to rake the yard a couple of times a year. Though since she was a depression era baby that would have never worked because she was cheap and she would probably accuse the person of stealing from her.
So my grandmother cut down everyone one of the trees in her yard over the course of a few years. Now this wasn't done very professionally so there were awkward stumps all over that a certain person who would mow her lawn would twist an ankle on at least once a mowing. Her yard went from being beautifully shaded and green to sun-drenched and slightly burned. So you think that my grandmother would be satisfied, but Mother Nature was not finished with my grandmother. She still had the power of wind and leaves on her side. You see my grandmother never really thought about her backyard neighbor who had three 60 maple trees that towered just three feet from the backyard fence. Every fall they would unleash a torrent of leaves that would get caught in my grandmother's yard since three sides were fenced. So she would have to pick up the leaves and do all the work even though she didn't technically own any of the leaves.
Many years pasted and my grandmother became very upset about the leaf situation. She had known this neighbor for over forty years, but talking wasn't something her generation did. So she decided that she was going to start returning the leaves to sender. So one fall she collected all of the leaves in bags and tossed them over the fence to the neighbors yard. If she was going to have trees then she was going to have leaves. Now most of you probably are cheering for my grandmother because she took matters into her own hand and really wasn't that malicious. Though I would argue she already did the work, why not just bring them to the street. Well the story does not end here as the backyard neighbor did not like this one bit. So this 65+ year old woman called the police on the almost 75+ year old woman.
The police responded and had to ask my grandmother to stop. Now I would have loved to see this personally because my grandmother could argue with the best of them and whenever she had the truth on her side she was not to be denied. (Her truth was they were not her leaves so she was just returning them to their owner.) The policeman convinced her to stop but only after threat of arrest if it happened again. I am pretty sure that every year after that though she would drop on bag in the neighbor's yard in the middle of the night because there always seemed to be more leaves at one part of the fence then the rest of the fence.
My grandmother loved to tell me that story almost every time I visited her in the fall. She would get so worked up like it happened yesterday and she would always shake her fist at least once during the story. One of the reasons I loved my grandmother so much was because of her passion. She might not have had the most rationale sense, but by the facts she was usually correct. So now every time I pick up leaves I always throw a couple of pine cones or small sticks in one of the neighbors yard in honor of my grandmother. I hope you enjoyed the story.
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