To my friends and readers:

Sprouting Memories

Sometimes I like to think ahead clear into the next century -- to imagine how my grandchildren will think of me as I was at Christmas time, a way back in the nineteen hundreds.

There are the kiddies, gathered in my attic. Oops! I don't have an attic. So maybe they will be going through my things in my mini-storage. Lots of grannies are getting their own mini-storage units these days. Some are grateful that they don't have to live in them. Who knows whether 21st Century children will be hippies, punks or zoot suiters? Teenagers don't change, they just look progressively weirder. But please children, no safety pins in your ears or pierced noses. Have a little respect for my memory!

I can see little Angela picking up a pottery specimen, slightly chipped. Maybe one of its peggy legs is missing. Even so, she will know that it was once a small goat with a green face. As tears fill her eyes she will say: "This was grandma's Chia Pet. Remember when we gave her the Chia Pet? We bought it for her down at the old Thrifty Drugstore. I used to love Thrifty Drug, that quaint little store at the mall where you could get a Hershey bar for 65 cents. It's part of Club Drug now."

"Sure," said Daniel. "Grandma used to smear seeds on it, water it and watch the little seeds sprout. But she'd get so sad when they all shriveled up and died. Grandma hated shrivel."

"Yes," said Naomi. "I remember. She tried and tried but her Chia Pet was never hairy enough to suit her."

"Grandma sure was great, though. Remember that Clapper that we gave her for Christmas?" said Ian. "Every time we came in the house she used to show us how it worked. She used to sit on the couch and clap the Christmas tree on and off so fast it just winked at you. She said it made her happy, reminded her of Las Vegas."

Liliana smiled sweetly as she remembered: "After Christmas she used to hook her Clapper up to the blender so she could sit in her rocking chair and clap up a margarita any time she got thirsty."

"But remember Christmas dinner?" said Natasha "That was the best part. Grandma would light the candles, put the turkey on the table, turn the lights down really low then go from plate to plate with her Salad Shooter. She got so she could stand back five feet from the table and hit a plate with the cucumbers. When her batteries were fresh, nobody could shoot a salad like Grandma."

"I remember, all right." said Ariel "But I used to get really mad when she made such a big production of shooting radishes. Remember how we all hated radishes? When her eyesight got worse and her aim was off some radish slivers would end up floating in the gravy."

As they looked over Grandma's things their eyes grew misty.

"What ever happened to Grandma?" asked Daniel. "I haven't seen her for ages and I miss her so much."

Rose cleared her throat. As the oldest, she knew a few of the family's deepest, darkest secrets. "She ran off to Bora Bora with that telephone solicitor who called her up to tell her she had won a trip.

"She sold him on the idea of going with her and that was the last we saw of her. Isn't that just like Grandma? Stiffing us so we have to pay the rent on her mini-storage?"

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