Carnival Blog: GrandMa's Hands

I was an air force brat who unfortunately did not grow up around my maternal or paternal grandparents.
I can however tell you about the last years of my maternal grandmothers life when I brought her to come live with me at the ripe age of 92.
Oh, how I wish I had been around her in my growing up years.
My grandmother Essie Dean Taylor whose nickname was "Nig" was one of the funniest people I have ever been around.

One morning we went to breakfast at Denny's Resturant. I knew she liked bacon or sausage and eggs so I ordered that along with some hash brown potatoes and toast.
Well, sitting next to the salt and pepper was a bottle of Tabasco Sauce. She reached for the bottle but I gentley pushed it back,telling her that it was way to hot and was not at all like the regular louisiana hot sauce she was used to.
I think in her mind this young whipper snapper could not tell her what to do. She looked at me, squinched, and rolled her eyes at me. My grandma grabbed that bottle,and shook and shook and shook.
There was not one spot on her plate that was not red. She then took a big bite.
The next thing we heard was a loud Oh Blankety,blank,blank blank!!! This hot sauce must have been made in hell.!!
Everyone in the vicinity including the waitress laughed so hard that tears ran down all our faces.
The waitress eyes still full of water gave her a fresh plate,no charge.
My Grandma never used her hands to pick up another bottle of Tabasco sauce again.

Another time I laughed so hard was when I took her to the casino.
I really wanted to go that evening and had no one to watch her. I figured that a couple hours would not hurt her or me.
She expressed to me and a friend that went along that this was the first time in all of her 94 years that she had ever been in a casino,
let alone let two women drag her someplace she did not want to go.
She shook her finger at me, then folded her arms and started to pout.
I put a dollar in the machine where she was sitting and hit the spin button.
The next thing I know money started to come out. I reached in to get the winnings and got hit with a hard slap on my hand.
A voice said "If You touch my money,young lady"! My grandmother picked up all those quarters, put them in her purse,folded her arms again but this time no pout in sight.
I'am telling you I could not help but to laugh.

My Grandmother could cook the best seafood gumbo in the whole wide world. I can see those blue crab, lobster and shrimp right now with that touch only she had. My mother Zepher could attest to that because hers was the second best.

My grandmother Essie Dean Taylor Jamison passed away quietly in Phoenix Arizona in 2002.She was 96 years old.
She was the daughter of Joseph and Frances Dickerson Taylor,the granddaughter of Mariah Taylor and her husband Lawrence, and Charles and Elizabeth Dickerson all of Marshall Texas.