A long-ago afternoon with Granny Jones

Granny Jones is long gone, but I remember her and my visit with her as if it were yesterday. The rain had been falling steadily since noon. I was driving around aimlessly in the southern Illinois countryside, looking for something to do. Before I realized it, I was in front of Granny’s rambling two-story farmhouse.

She’d given me the directions when I’d talked to her on the phone. I wheeled the old pickup off the muddy gravel road into the hard-packed narrow lane that ended at a hitching post 100 yards from the road.

A sturdy woven-wire fence paralleled the land on both sides. The grass had just been cut before the rain started. By the time I reached the hitching post, Granny and a stock dog were waiting on the porch for me.

“Oh, it’s you,” Granny said, peering through the rain. “It’s okay, Sam. He won’t hurt a thing. Ain’t got a lick a’ sense sometimes, but he’s got more sense than that.”

I’d never met Granny in person, and I didn’t know what I expected her to look like. But she surprised me. I knew she had to be in her 90s, and I’d expected to see a helpless old woman. Not so.

She was wiry and hard looking. Her faded Levis fit her slim figure. Not an ounce of fat on her body. And her hair, which was below her shoulders and pulled back and tied just above her shirt collar with a piece of leather with a stick holding it in place, was only streaked with gray.

“Pleased to meet cha,” she said, jumping off the porch and giving me a firm handshake. “I been wonderin’ when you was acomin’ ’round to talk to me. I got some things on my mind.”

I laughed and told her I was pleased to meet her, too.

“Let’s get in out of the rain, boy,” she said. “You’ll catch yer death a’ cold if we don’t.”

Inside, she led me to the kitchen and told me to sit down at the table while she fixed us some coffee. A few minutes later, she had two scalding hot mugs of coffee ready. She threw back the big dish rag from the center of the table, uncovering the table furnishings and leftovers from her noon meal.

“How ’bout a slice of bread, butter and jam? Made the bread this mornin’ and churned the butter. Made the jam, too,” she said and pushed the makings toward me. “I won’t fix it fer you.”

I buttered the thick slice of bread and took the first bite without the jam. Nodding, I spread a thick coat of jam over the butter. Strawberry. I smiled, took a bigger bite and nodded again.

“Glad you like it,” Granny said. “You just go ahead and help yerself. I want to say what’s on my mind. You listen, too.”

I nodded and tried a drink of coffee. It burned my mouth. But just as I was about to holler, Granny took a big swig and went on talking.

“I see you been writin’ ’bout old men again. Don’t mind that atall. I don’t mind hearin’ ’bout old men. I’d take one myself if they’s any good ones around. But what gets my gall is when you write about all these old men and hardly ever write ’bout old women. Or young women. Seen where you write about young men, too. So how ’bout some old women? Women period. Seems to me like you fergit ’bout them. Don’t you know any?”

I nodded again.

“Well, write about ’em sometimes.

“Now, they’s some other things I want to bend yer ear ’bout. Seen a sign on the back of a car the other day. Said, ‘Don’t complain about farmers with food in yer mouth.’

“Works both ways, that does. Everybody’s acomplainin’ ’bout the price of gas. But everybody’s right. Prices are too high.

“Oil companies and people in the government talk ’bout shortages. But you notice that they’s always gas when the prices ’re up. And them danged oil companies keep makin’ money. Seen the other day where the money a couple of them companies was amakin’ fer the first three months this year was way up, just like everythin’ else.  

“’Spect that’s right,” she said, cackling. “If I was to own a company that had gasoline, I reckon I could make some money, too. You have anything enough fools want and made to feel they need it, and you kin git any price you want fer it. People will believe ’bout anything, if they’re told enough times.”

I’d finished my second piece of Granny’s bread, butter and strawberry jam. The coffee was cool enough to drink by then. I tried it. It was black, thick and strong.

“It’s like the sign said,” Granny said. “Oh, shoot, all the people of this country would have to do to rid us of the shortage of gas is stay off the road for a week. Even a day’d help. Just stay home and don’t blow money on anything.

“That’d probably drive prices down some, too. But people ain’t got ’nough sense. Heard one asayin’ the other day how high gas was gettin’ and how awful it was. I told him he didn’t have to buy it. He said he’d buy it if it got to $10 a gallon as long as he had the money.

“And I ’spect it will. They’s machines at the gas stations that go up to $99.9 a gallon. I’m fer lettin’ everbody do as they damn well please, though. I kin live without it. I’ve got my livin’ right here. I kin get by.”

I believed she could and had started thinking about her now, wondering what she’d have to say today about the world in which we live. Just imagine.