LeeAnn and Grandma Pearl

Whenever Jane needed weekend or overnight babysitting services, she called on Grandma Mary and Grandma Pearl.

Even though Grandma Mary and Grandma Pearl was Laurie and LeeAnn's relatives, they were around our neighborhood so often that we ALL called them Grandma Mary and Grandma Pearl.

Grandma Mary and Grandma Pearl lived together in a house near Georgia Tech.

Grandma Mary was Jane's mother. She was a very sweet and quiet woman. She was a little feeble physically, but sharp as a tack mentally. Whenever she talked to us kids in the neighborhood, she actually talked TO us; not AT us. And she seemed genuinely interested in what we had to say. She told us stories and we told stories to her.

Grandma Pearl was Grandma Mary's mother. She might have been old, but she was far from dead. She was feisty. In other words, Grandma Pearl didn't put up with ANY nonsense.

If you entrusted your children to the "tender" care of Grandma Pearl, you relinquished your parental rights. Translated, that meant that Grandma Pearl reserved the right to open up a major can of whoop a** on you if you crossed her. She thought nothing of going to town on your rear end Grandma Pearl style....with a hickory switch personally selected by none other than Grandma Pearl.

One of my dad's favorite things to do after supper was to go outside, sit in his lounge chair underneath the shade trees in our front yard, drink a coke, and read the paper. One of my favorite things to do was lay in the grass next to him and read the funny papers and attempt to work the crossword puzzle.

One night, my dad and I were sitting in the yard, totally engrossed in our papers. We heard the back door open across the street and Grandma Pearl call for LeeAnn. LeeAnn did not answer, so Grandma Pearl stepped outside and called a couple more times. Still no answer.

Grandma Pearl hollered over to my dad. "Ken, you haven't seen LeeAnn have you?"

"No," my dad answered. "But if I do see her I'll tell her you're looking for her."

Trying to be helpful, I piped up. "You know, she may be over at Missy's house. If they are inside, she probably can't hear you."

Grandma Pearl scrowled. "She better not be up there. She told me she was just going to ride her bike up and down the street. I guess I'd better call and find out."

I felt bad because I didn't mean to get LeeAnn in trouble.

Apparently, that's where LeeAnn had been, because shortly afterwards, she rode her bike onto her driveway and was promptly met by a p*ssed off Grandma Pearl.

"Why didn't you tell me where you were going?" asked Grandma Pearl.

"We weren't doing anything except watching TV" said LeeAnn.

"That's not what I asked you" said Grandma Pearl. "You should have asked."

"Well ok....now that you know where I was, can I go back?" asked LeeAnn.

Grandma Pearl said "No...It's getting late. It's almost time for you to come in and take a bath anyway. Come on in."

LeeAnn just looked at her. "Oh Grandma....come ON! It's still daylight. Let me go back."

Grandma Pearl was getting a little irritated. "LeeAnn, I SAID NO....and I MEAN NO. Now come on in the house."

LeeAnn was getting just as irritated. "But WHY? Why can't I go back?"

Grandma Pearl pulled out the answer that every parent has for that question. "Because I SAID so, that's why. Now GET IN THIS HOUSE.....NOW!"

By this time, both my dad and I had long since put down our papers to watch this standoff.

LeeAnn stared for a minute at Grandma Pearl. She got off of her bicycle and slowly walked towards Grandma Pearl. She stopped, then took her bike, gave it a slight shove and it rolled towards the carport. She stood there for a minute staring Grandma Pearl down.

Grandma Pearl said "Come on, let's go."

LeeAnn said "No."

"What?" asked Grandma Pearl.

My dad looked at me and said "Did LeeAnn just say no?"

"That's what I thought she said" I replied. I was actually stunned...and somewhat in awe of LeeAnn's bravery.

LeeAnn just stared at Grandma Pearl. "I said no. I'm going back down to Missy's."

Grandma Pearl was royally p*ssed at that point. She walked over towards LeeAnn and as she passed one of the shrubs in the front yard she selected a switch.

"LeeAnn, I've had it. I'm fixin' to wear you out."

"Oh yeah?" LeeAnn shot back. "Well, first you have to CATCH me!"

She then proceeded to run all over the front yard. She'd run up towards Grandma Pearl and just when she was in arm's length of Grandma Pearl, she'd run away.

Grandma Pearl was beyond p*ssed. That's when LeeAnn REALLY did it.

She turned around and stared at Grandma Pearl. She stretched her arms out to either side, them put her hands up to her ears and wiggled her fingers. She started shaking her rear end from left to right. "Na Na Ni Na Na....you can't catch me."

At this point the spectacle was so funny, that both my dad and I started to laugh....but not loud enough for Grandma Pearl to hear lest she decide to take a stroll across the street and beat us.

LeeAnn began running through the front yard again and singing her little song at the top of her lungs.

Grandma Pearl retreated to the house. LeeAnn saw my dad and I sitting in the front yard, so she skipped over to visit.

My dad looked at LeeAnn and said "Lightning, you're in big trouble. Grandma Pearl is MAD!" (Lightning was my dad's nickname for LeeAnn; her nickname for my dad was Thunder.)

LeeAnn just laughed. "I ain't scared of her. She's ain't gonna do nuthin'."

"I don't know" my dad said. "She looked awful mad to me. You better go home and tell her you're sorry."

"Sorry for what?" LeeAnn asked. "I was just up at Missy's watchin' TV. We weren't doin' anything."

"I'm talking about running all over the yard like you were doing," my dad told her.

"Well, I HAD to run...did you see that switch she had?"

My dad laughed and said "Yeah, I saw it. I also saw her take it in the house with her, so you KNOW she's waiting on you. But she didn't get that switch until you told her no. If you had just done what she said in the first place, you'd be ok. You better get back over there....she's waiting."

LeeAnn said "Well she's gonna have a long wait."

My dad said "Well just what are you planning on doing? It's going to be dark soon."

"I don't know" LeeAnn said. "I'll figure something out."

LeeAnn and my dad continued to talk and eventually it got dark. From across the street, we heard Grandma Pearl tell Grandma Mary and Laurie good night. We heard her say to Grandma Mary "If little Miss LeeAnn comes home tonight, you tell her that I haven't forgotten about this and I'm going to wear her butt out tomorrow."

LeeAnn whispered to my dad "That's what I was waiting on. She's going to bed. Grandma Mary ain't goin' to do anything and by tomorrow Grandma Pearl will have forgotten all about it."

My dad said, "Well, maybe....but I doubt it. But you better go on home, just the same. You can tell me how it turns out tomorrow."

LeeAnn sighed. "Ok, Thunder....I'll see you tomorrow. Bye 'Nette. (She never called me Annette, she always dropped the first syllable. Until I met Tom, she was the only one that had ever called me that.)

"Bye LeeAnn; I'll see you tomorrow," I said. LeeAnn skipped across the street.

My dad and I continued to sit in the yard listening to the crickets. The night air was cooler now, and I had a feeling that something was about to happen.

I watched as LeeAnn slowly opened the back door, and quietly sneaked into the house.

Suddenly, the living room light flipped on and we saw the shadow of Grandma Pearl standing in the middle of the room....along with the faint outline of a switch. It was something straight out of an Alfred Hitchcock movie.

"Uh-oh..." I looked at my dad. "Grandma Pearl LIED! She didn't go to bed. LeeAnn's gonna get it now!"

"First off," my dad said, "Grandma Pearl did not lie. She was actually pretty smart. Secondly, don't you think LeeAnn deserved it? What do you that I would have done if that had been you or one of your brothers?"

"Well....I guess if I had done that I guess I have to find another place to live because I don't know if I would have come home."

"Well...then I guess you'd better not ever do anything like that" my dad said. "We'd better go on in the house now. I gotta get up early tomorrow to go to work. Let's go."

We gathered up the newspapers, my dad folded up the lounge chair, and we walked towards the house listening to the sounds of crickets, a hickory switch flailing through the air, LeeAnn hollerin' at Grandma Pearl that she'd had enough, and Grandma Pearl punctuating ever swat with "No....You.....Haven't.....You....Better....Mind....Me....From.....Now...On.....Do.....You
....Understand....Me?"

I didn't stay to hear the rest. I already knew how that switch lecture went because we had all had experienced it ourselves at one time or another.