Remembering my grandmother

This evening I was out walking one of our dogs at the local dog park and got thinking of my grandmother Marcellla whom passed away back in the 1980s.  What triggered it I was headed out the road that would have taken me to my Aunts house that my grandmother and I often visited.

I have no memories of my grandfather Ralph at all.  My grandmother was in my mind one of a kind.  The things she did such as the two of visiting my aunt or traveling to Tacoma to see my Uncle Joe and my aunt.  I would often go upstairs in their home to the game room where the pool table was located.  I never did learn how to play pool properly in all the trips there.   I remember the time grandma told me that no one in the family had beaten Uncle Joe at pinochle till I had beat him.

I got a chuckle today thinking of... oh my god could I imagine my grandmother driving on I-5 in this day in age? Hell she often would either forget her keys or purse and we would have go chase her down before she left the driveway.

While she was still alive the family... our family and my moms two brothers familys gathered together for the Christmas.  Every year we rotated whoms home the clan would invade for the holiday.  After grandma passed away, the holiday gathering started puttering out and finally ended.  Grandma was the matriarch - the cement that held the family together.

When I think of Grandma I have two images in my head.  One is a picture and my parents have the picture of her on the wall of her sitting on a long among the wildflowers that was taken at Hurricane Ridge.

The second image happened a number of years after the eruption of Mt. St. Helens.  Grandma had wanted to go fishing for smelt and the fish were returning to the Cowlitz River.  I remember her climbing down the river bank carrying the big long handled net that people use to catch  to catch smelt.  After a few tries she had not caught any and was disappointed.  Dad walked down took the net did a few swipes of the net up and down the river and came up with a whopping net full of smelt then he handed her the net to hold.  I remember the big grin vividly that was on her face.