We moved across the highway a block on the other side and up a hill. We were surrounded by woods, bushes, and trees, the perfect adventure world for a kid stuck in their own world functionally half deaf, half blind, and unable to remember what others were saying. To the West was a beautiful view of the glacier capped MouNt RainIer, to the East the snow capped Olympic Mountains, and to the south below the one mile square community. Way in the distance among the foot hills was Mount Saint Helens and Mount Adams. Two blocks away I could see the park and part of the old house I had lived in. The woods were full of ant hills, my little pets, I would learn to study their ways and patterns. I was extremely active, something I could do with ease.
The other world would be the world of my Grandmother. I would truck down the half a city block path down the hill, scuttle along three dusty side roads, down an alley and to my Grandmothers houses. She had a two story home. The second floor had slanted walls from the roof and two bedrooms lined together between. It was an old house with wooden floors and wall paper, an old wood stove oven in the kitchen and oil stove in the dinning rood. She also had a shack in the back, where Grandpa lived in his retirement and invented things for fun. Oh, yes, and she had a black cat, we loved him dearly.
Grandma was an unsung hero. She had been a school teacher in her youth, the one room school house. Grandma was progressive and practical for her time. As a young woman she dared to wear her skirts above the ankles so the mud would not soil her clothes. Her best memories were being sixteen and riding their horse with the wind in her hair. An excellent sense of humor came out when she let her hair down. She would of been happy as an old maid school teacher but her father married her off to my Grandfather, a hard working, railroad man who was mean, unschooled, and an unsocial inventor. GM lived through many hardships with him, eight kids, and at times farming rock soil, but that is another story. She had lots of stories.
My mother asked her to teach me to read and spell. But she somehow knew better. Instead she gave me what I needed most, her wisdom and homestyle therapy, I would of never been able to learn the others, years later, without her therapy. I will explain in the next post.
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