Grandma & Grandpa T Part I

My great grandparents’ house in Wabash, Indiana was full of antiques. Some antiques lived there, like the sleigh bells hanging from the back door that jangled whenever you stepped too heavily on the old floors. Some were waiting to be fixed by my Grandpa T—latches repaired, paint stripped, wood stained—so they could go to their antique shop on Canal Street.  

The entire house felt like a treasure trove to a little girl, with something new to be discovered in every crook and cranny. Baskets hanging from the ceiling, glass grapes on the 1800s Hoosier cabinet, huge blue and tan crocks on the porch with various old yardsticks and canes and other wooden riffraff piled in. The steep stairs going up to the bedrooms always had things piled on them—old postcards, books, frames. And in the guest room, where I often slept, there was a giant four-poster bed with a lace coverlet that felt like it had been delivered straight from the past. Somehow I got the impression someone had died in it—I probably had created that story myself after hearing Grandma T talk about wherever the bed had come from. She had lots of stories about the people who owned the things she fixed and sold, or stories about how a particular craft was developed and how objects were used.  She talked to me once for 45 minutes about a quilt design. I timed it—not in a begrudging way, but with amusement at how long she could go once you got her started.

I don’t know what material the 70s green couch was covered with, but it had a texture that now makes me think of an old and comfortable sweater, and big, knobby buttons in the center of the back cushions. I lay there cuddled with Teddy after Grandpa T tried to make me drink alka seltzer to ease a stomachache one winter.

“It will make you feel better. Just hold your nose and drink it,” he said, holding the glass out to me.

Tears leaking out, almost hysterical, I shook my head.

“It will make me throw up!”

He was exasperated with me.

I loved that house almost as much as I loved the antique shop, where I’d go spend the days in the summer helping Grandma T rearrange the jewelry cabinet or the book section. She always let me take whatever books I wanted for as long as I wanted—old hardback Nancy Drews, The Bobbsey Twins, The Boxcar Children, Hardy Boys. On those mornings, Grandma T would pack the two of us up in her full sized van, cramming whatever boxes needed to go to the store in the back, and we’d stop in downtown Wabash on the way to get donuts or snacks. She loved those pink waffle sandwich cookies that taste a bit like air-filled cardboard. She’d let me get these egg shaped marshmallow confections that I can’t quite picture now, but I can still taste them, light and sugary and insubstantial.

When we got to the store it was my job to help her pull out the outdoor displays—maybe an old bench or a rocking horse, and a big crock to hold the front door open. We’d stash our snacks behind the glass jewelry counter and I’d get to work straightening something while she went through receipts or other paperwork. When people came in I’d brace myself for having to be introduced, which was always done as a string of relative terms—“This is Pam’s daughter Tammy’s daughter Haley—my great granddaughter!” And then I’d be cooed over by whatever stranger was there, told I look like my mom or my grandma or my grandpa or my dad.

At lunch time we’d close up the shop and get a “sandwich” from Arby’s. If my Grandpa T was working next door in the space they rented as a workshop, we’d stop and see what he wanted. He’d be at the back, his white t-shirt covered in wood stain, working on a drawer or a shelf or a wooden trunk. Later when he lay dying in the hospital my mom told me he thought he was sawing wood in his hospital bed, moving his arms back and forth over an imaginary workbench.

The upstairs of the antique shop was off limits to my younger brothers, but I was allowed. Whenever I was sent there on an errand or just to see if there was something I could straighten (I was a master straightener in those days, and I imagined myself a bit of a sales display and marketing pro), I made my way up the steep stairs carefully and slowly. It was dangerous up there—the far sides of the room, blocked off from the public, had no floorboards, only breams. I wasn’t allowed there. That’s where Grandma and Grandpa T stored extra chairs and headboards. The rest of the room was floored and arranged for customers, but the floors creaked and slanted with age, and everything seemed just a little bit unstable.

When I’d finish whatever tasks Grandma T had for me, or when I got tired of working, I’d hide back in the book section and read, surrounded by all the antiques and happy in my little corner. At closing time we’d pack all the outside displays back in and lock the door, then it was back to the house. Grandma T would make me a cheese toastie or hot dog for dinner, and I’d swipe chocolate kisses from the cabinet or refrigerator.