For 11/21/96 Drummer Column, Gibbs, 719 words

8:20

It's near the holidays that I miss my grandmother the most. Minnie was perhaps the biggest influence of my childhood. She lived right next door, and my widowed mother worked a lot. The brick walkway from our back door to hers was worn smooth from the years of people, dogs, and cats passing between.

Minnie sang while she worked in her kitchen. I would sit in a chair, out of time, and listen. Sometimes she'd put a needle in the old Victrola, crank it up, and pop on a 78. One of our favorites was the "Generous Fiddler" by Rhine Winkler. We also liked the "California Schottische," by Harley Luse. In the evenings I'd play with toy trucks on her big front porch while she sat in her swing, humming. Sometimes, she told me stories. Sometimes she plain out pulled my leg.

One afternoon she and I walked past a clock store and all the stopped clocks in the window were set at 8:20. I asked, "Grandma, why are all the clocks set at 8:20?'

She paused, then said firmly, "Because that is when Lincoln was shot. It's to commemorate his death." A few years later, I passed a different clock store alone, and the clocks were set at all times. I went in and asked the owner why he didn't set his clocks for 8:20 to commemorate the death of Abraham Lincoln. He looked at me like my ears had sprouted carrots.

"What are you talking about?" he asked. I explained the age-old tradition among clock-store owners across the country to set their timepieces for Lincoln's death. He said he'd never heard of it. I nearly had a paradigm clash. To this day, I've never seen store clocks set at 8:20, nor have I walked past any without thinking of my grandmother.

One spring day a friend and I got the bright idea to dig a hole to China. We got out shovels and picks and a wheelbarrow to move the dirt, then began construction in the middle of Minnie's garden. About three feet down she came out and asked what we were doing. We explained that we intended to spend a few days in Peking. She didn't laugh, but her eyes sparkled. She walked to the edge of the hole. I scooped some dirt into a bucket with my hands and passed it up to my friend, J.K.

She looked around, like she was surveying a plot. I'll tell you what," she said. "You better have a bigger opening, because it's going to get narrower as you dig down." She broke an apple tree limb into four sticks, and stuck them into four corners, about ten feet apart. "This ought to do it. Loosen the soil first, down about a foot, then it will be easier to dig out." She brought us lemonade. After a few hours we had the dirt loose. Then she came out and convinced us we were tired. She explained it would take years to dig to China and gave us 25-cents each. "Go buy some candy," she said, and we were gone.

The next morning she was in her garden planting strawberries in her newly tilled soil.

Her husband, Grandpa Joe, lived in upstate New York. During Prohibition he was busted for making moonshine and running a Speakeasy. Apparently, a customer froze to death after passing out in the outhouse. The Sheriff, a good customer, advised him to leave Pennsylvania for good. At least, that's the story Minnie told.

Minnie, at one time, owned 22 cats. She had about six regulars, but they kept making babies. She always had kittens to give away. When she couldn't give them away, she'd call Dr. Tanner, the vet. He'd drive over, put the cats in his trunk in a special box, connect a hose to it from his exhaust, start the car, then come inside for coffee.

I bonded to a litter once, and when Dr. Tanner's name began coming up in conversation, I went on a coin-jar crusade, knocking on doors all over town raising money to fed six kittens. I made about $8, gave it to Minnie, and the cats lived.

What I remember most fondly was being rocked to sleep in her big wicker chair and fading out to the tune of "Tura-lura-lura."