Disclaimer: Many of the stories are completely fictional. Other stories are fictional accounts of true stories. Other stories are completely true. Sometimes the names have been changed to protect the innocent.
My Grandmother Ruby (A.K.A. Granny-For-Short) told us a story of back when my father was a young man. Evidently, my father was late coming home from a Boy Scout meeting and Grandma decided toplay a little trickon him.
According to my Aunt Gloria, my father had an old truck that you could hear coming for a long way. The road he had to travel required that he drive past an old, closed down funeral home. To him, this was very scary.
Granny-For-Short dressed my Uncle Carl up in a sheet and waited to hear R. B. coming up the road in that loud, old truck he had. She lowered Carl out the side window and told him to go up front and yell “Boo.”
Carl obeyed his mother and, from the shadows of the side of the house, yelled as loud as he could “Boo!” R. B., my father, could hear the "boo" and see the porch light faintly illuminating the figure of a ghost just off the front porch.
R. B. took off running back up the front walk to the neighbor’s house, where he beat on the door, crying and yelling and begging to be let in. Carl chased after him the whole way yelling “Boo!” My grandmother laughed so hard she cried as did Carl.
R.B. was really very scared and the neighbors worried that he was going to pass out right then and there because he was so scared.
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This past Mothers’ Day gave me pause to think about all the mothers in my life. Of course, there is my birth mother, Merle Marie Roberts McClendon Born. I address her in several other blog posts.
There are then my blood grandmothers, Ruby Fowler McClendon and Mary Leona Bushnell Roberts.
Then, there are numerous “adopted mothers and grandmothers” along the way.
This post will be about my Grandmother Ruby Fowler McClendon. I have no idea what her middle name is or if she even had one.
When I was first born, my birth family lived in Doraville, Georgia, and my Grandma Ruby lived what seemed like a million miles away in Johnston, South Carolina. As best I remember, she always lived in the same brick house.
When my Aunt Gloria married the man who would become my Uncle Franklin,
they bought the house directly behind Grandma Ruby’s. Just cattycorner across the intersection lived Uncle Franklin’s mother and father, Mr. and Mrs. Mitchell.
This made a nice little community of family. Uncle Franklin did not want us kids to call him Uncle Franklin, so he became just “Franklin”.
Once while we kids were staying with my Grandma Ruby for a few days, my younger brother, Daniel, asked Grandma Ruby if we could call her “Granny for Short”. She said yes. My smart aleck sister and my adorable self decided that Grandma Ruby’s new name was now, “Granny for Short."
Throughout the years whenever Grandma Ruby had occasion to write to us kids, she would sign the cards and letters "Granny for Short". It was a cute little thing that lasted a few years.
Every single time I went to visit Granny for Short before I became a diabetic, she would make sure she ALWAYS made me chocolate pudding from scratch. No mixes for Granny for Short. Never did she miss this.
Once at school we were served icebox pie. It was good. Granny for Short worked as a lunchroom lady at Strom Thurmond High School. I’ll bet she was a darn good one, too.
I mentioned the icebox pie to my grandma and do you know what? The very next time we visited her, she had made icebox pie. She made a whole one just for me and another one for those unlucky family members that would have to share.
Granny for Short also made sure that she made ambrosia for my sister because she liked it.
Thanksgiving at Granny for Short’s house was always an event. I’ll bet she cooked for a week to get ready.
When Granny for Short moved to Iva, South Carolina, directly behind McClendon Manor, I could see her almost every day. This was great. I could pop in for a minute before time to go to work at the store and she would fill me in on whatever was going on.
Granny for Short passed away many years ago now. We found out early one
Sunday morning. We were getting the kids ready to load in the car and drive down to see her at the nursing home.
We went to see her once a month if we could keep the car running. The call came in. It was Franklin. He said “Mrs. McClendon passed away this morning.” It was a sad day.
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on him.
