Degrees, Mar. 18, 1996

Yesterday, we went out to breakfast and then at noon, we went to a corn-beef and cabbage dinner.  I was so full - but Grampa was in "pig" heaven...  We have been watching the squirrel work his way onto the hanging feeder - but when he gets there - Grampa chases him down below.

I was figuring how many colleges I have been to, and I have come up with 20 (one in England) and 3 prep schools (1 in England).  But alas I didn't earn a single degree.  I do have 3 degrees though - an M.O.M., a G.R.A.M., and a G.G. degree.

A short note here - but full of insight into a longing Grammie never fulfilled.  Gram married right out of high school when she was 18.  She had been accepted at Simmons College outside of Boston, but declined to go because of her marriage ("I was married when I was 18 and wow! - did my chores begin then!").  By the time she was 23, she had 5 children, and a husband who turned out not to be Prince Charming.  Grammie was always quite candid with me that her one big regret in life was getting married so young.  She loved learning - did very well in high school - and would have excelled in college.  But, for whatever reason, she chose a different path.  She loved her children dearly, but she regretted her decision to start a family before she'd had a chance to further her own education.

Her love of reading and learning has been passed down to many of her children and grandchildren.  And she was certainly proud of all her progeny, and her role in their upbringing.  But I've always wondered, what would her life have been like if she had chosen the other path all those years ago?  Would she still have married young and had a large family?  Would she have become a teacher or librarian and worked for a while?  How would her outlook on life be different?

Those years with 5 young children and a not-really-there husband made a significant impact on a young woman.  Money was tight and she was often on her own.  Perhaps it was the loss of her own education that made her value those opportunities even more.

Degree or no, she did eventually become a librarian's assistant at Hartford Public High School - when she was 50 years old.  It was a job she adored.  "I was the secretary and I earned $62 a week to start.  When I retired I was earning $225 per week.  I worked there for 17 years.  Did anything and everything necessary in a library and I loved it."

Perhaps she never did go to college, but life experience taught her a hell of a lot: perseverance, self-reliance, and hope.  In the end, she earned the only degree that truly matters: love from her family, to whom she taught so much.

Days in February, 1996

Feb. 5, 1996
Sunday we took Grampa's daughter Missie and her husband up to Canaan.  Missie wanted to go to the Falls where she had gone as a little girl.  Well - we didn't find those falls, but we did go to the falls Grampa and I had found years ago.  When we got to the road - it was not plowed but a car had been down there.  It is a very narrow road - but of course, we decided to go.  We had come this far - we weren't going to stop now - praying all the time we wouldn't meet a car and that we would stay in the track.  We made it and it was beautiful - the snow was so clean and real white.  The icicles hanging beside the swirling water were so pretty.  I took some pictures but really don't think they will do justice to the real beauty of it all.
As Grampa and I came home from Missie's we had the pleasure of a full moon.  We haven't been out at night for a long time.

Feb. 11, 1996
On a rainy Sunday afternoon...

Grampa is watching some weirdo movie - shoot 'em up, bang 'em down.  So I guess it's a good time to get my weekly writing done.

Uncle Peter was up in Vermont a week ago and Aunt G. wanted her chimney cleaned.  Someone gets up on the roof with an evergreen tree with a rope tied to the end of it.  Then the tree is lowered doen the chimey, with someone on the other end.  The tree is pulled up and down and loosens the soot - great to clean up.  Well, Peter climbed on the roof - tree and all, but the rope broke - tree got stuck.  I got laughing so hard at the picture of all this, that I forgot to ask him just how he got the tree unstuck!  So much for clean chimneys.

Grammie and Grampa loved to drive in the country, taking winding dirt roads that led who knows where.  Grampa had a good sense of direction, but Grammie did not.  The joke was that Grampa always had to make sure she had a full tank of gas in the car when she went out, since it was easy for her to get lost.  Some of my favorite driving memories happened with Gram and Grampa.  I remember taking the back roads with them up to Vermont - a longer drive but a more leisurely one.  We didn't have to rush to get there; we meandered and took our time, watching the scenery for stone walls and "moo-cows."  It was from her I learned the old wives' tale that when cows lie down, you should expect rain.  So I'd watch for cows along our drive to check the weather!

Up in Vermont, time was always slowed down.  The ever-changing modern world never seemed to encroach on the farm - even so modern an idea as a chimney sweep!  Uncle Peter was a sport - always helping out up there.  I can just imagine the look on his face when the rope broke, and I can hear Grammie laughing and laughing at this story.  Some modern conveniences might be worth it, after all, though I bet that was the freshest-smelling chimney around!