I like to be popular, favorite, best friend, most likely, who doesn't! So you can imagine spending time with my Grandma Epler, and clearly, not being her favorite. Well, not until she lost her mind and thought I was her brother Todd. ( Still wanting her most status, I would go along with her) Why didn't she like me? Oh, she wasn't mean to me, just not interested! " Look Grandma, I can do a cartwheel while singing "I'm a little tea pot" and do all the gestures, too!" I yelled from the front yard. " Come in and eat your rubbard sauce" she rolled her eyes and yelled back. Maybe inside she might ask me to help her with a project. One of her favorite summer jobs included mixing something odd and horrible on the stove. Pouring the mixture in a jar, then standing at the top of the cellar stairs. " Here, throw this down the stairs...it's for that damn skunk."she ordered. I would throw this potion down the stairs, smashing it against the wall. "Wait one hour then go clean up, unless the skunk is still there." she planned. I would worry for an hour. Then peak down the stairs and sniff for a presence. Cleaning up the glass was the worse, and I always managed to cut myself. Which would mean a door knob size of gaze around my finger, and sticky white adhesive tape. "Help yourself to a piece of rock candy, from the ledge." she rewarded. Okay, if you aren't from Montana... Harlem, Montana, you probably don't know about rock candy, either. It looks just like pebbles of river rock! No shit! (Not being favored, you got rocks) My cousins would feast on cookie and Orange Crush, until they popped! Bastards!
At dinner I would push my way threw my cousins and family members, to sit next to Grandma. Check out the picture...she is thrilled! Probably has rock candy in her purse.
These portraits hung inside the wall, leading into her dining room. "Who are they Grandma?" I asked. "They Grandpa and Grandma Earkhart, my parents." she said not missing a beat setting her table for dinner. " They are dead, now" she signed. Well, not so dead, if they are still showing up in Antique Malls and thrift stores all over America. I discovered my first set of "Contented Man and Woman" in Wisconsin!
This is the woman who is probably why I am so craft minded. She sewed costumes and props for all my cousins, professional quality! ( not for me, high top tennis shoes and a cheap straw cowboy hat, would do me fine) She created millions of projects from recycled objects! My favorite was a pin cushion from a Cambells soap can. Covered with pink foam and eyelet!
Check it out! Still trying to win her over! I think she secretly would have loved my work! I think she secretly wanted to rid her small town life and been an artist in New York, or a famous costume designer! Maybe she resented me. Before she died, my Dad and I cleaned out her house. Every closet packed with eyelet, trim, fabrics..and cans! We found something ,on the top shelf, in the back porch closet, in a red Valentine box. The red flocked Valentine was marked across the top, " For Kent". Inside were bits and pieces of trim, eyelet, a rusted pair of sizzers, real silk ribbons. For Kent...maybe I wasn't her favorite...just alot like her.
Natie Earkhart Epler-Artist?
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