thanks, granny! thanks, gramps!

September 10, 2011 7:03 PM

Tomorrow, September 11, 2011, all Americans will, in their own way, in observances public and private, pay tribute to... their grandparents.

Yes, although the fact is little known, the first Sunday after Labor Day is National Grandparent's Day. Has been since president Jimmy Carter signed the proclamation declaring it, way back in 1978. And there would appear to be an Official Grandparent's Day Song, which you can listen to at your own risk.

posted by flapjax at midnite (43 comments total)

Yay! I'm one! Wait a minute! No, I'm not included!

Won't somebody please think of us grand-parents who are not American! Everybody needs a hug!
posted by woodblock100 at 7:08 PM on September 10, 2011 [8 favorites]

Sorry, woodblock. You'll have to petition your own government to observe Grandparent's Day. This is for MURRIKUNS!
posted by flapjax at midnite at 7:15 PM on September 10, 2011 [2 favorites]

I wanna be grandma of the year, vote for me! I'm a true blue red and white Murrikun!
posted by mareli at 7:18 PM on September 10, 2011

Say flapjax ... about that 'song'. Isn't this your cue to step up to the plate?
posted by woodblock100 at 7:22 PM on September 10, 2011

Good point, woodblock. Maybe I'll try my hand at a grandma/grandpa tune, that'd be fun. In the meantime, here's a great one, from the great John Prine.

although I think he takes it a hair too fast in this rendition...
posted by flapjax at midnite at 7:35 PM on September 10, 2011

Oh trust me Cailou hasn't let me forget.

(the little French/Canadian, bastard that he is)
posted by stormpooper at 7:39 PM on September 10, 2011

Speaking of John Prine, this tune of his has, I think, some bearing on that other thing that people will be observing on September 11...

Your Flag Decal Won't Get You Into Heaven Anymore
posted by flapjax at midnite at 7:41 PM on September 10, 2011 [6 favorites]

A lot fo these "national ________ days" are just marketing bunkum. There isn't really a National Ice Cream Day or National Hot Dog week, even if Ben & Jerry's & Nathan's say so. But look! There is an official National Grandparents Day!
posted by MrMoonPie at 7:42 PM on September 10, 2011

Well, for songs about Grandpa, you can't really do much better than this one!
posted by woodblock100 at 7:42 PM on September 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

I think I hit the grandparents lottery, as mine were all quietly, humanly terrific people, warts and all. I still own some of my maternal grandfather's hand tools, my maternal grandmother's cast iron skillets, my paternal grandmother's chromos and shoes (really unique German women's lace oxfords), and some land my paternal grandfather, with whom I shared a birthday for 30+ years until he died, bought, 75 years ago. Accordingly, I think about these people, who've made me, and helped me, quite literally, a lot more than once a year.
posted by paulsc at 7:46 PM on September 10, 2011

Haha! That's one Ray Stevens tune that had passed me by until now. Thanks, woodblock!
posted by flapjax at midnite at 7:48 PM on September 10, 2011

Although... I see he didn't write it. Would've been a likely one for him to have written, though. Thanks again!
posted by flapjax at midnite at 7:49 PM on September 10, 2011

The GPs are long gone, but I will think about them tomorrow. Thanks for the reminder.!
posted by lampshade at 7:51 PM on September 10, 2011

I propose that from here on out every MetaFilter thread include at least one link to a John Prine song.
posted by BitterOldPunk at 7:53 PM on September 10, 2011 [8 favorites]

Yes, "I'm My Own Grandpa" predates even Ray Stephens by almost two decades and the original version by Lonzo and Oscar used to get played on Dr. Demento's show. Although I've heard from some conspiracy nut that it was actually written by a couple of Futurama writers who'd gone back in time.
posted by oneswellfoop at 8:01 PM on September 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

When I was little, I used to worry that Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer foretold the demise of my grandma. Despite the fact that roughly ever other part of the song besides a grandma with medication bears no resemblance to my family (calling grandad 'grandpa', football, both grandparents there at Christmas).

I've always lived with 3,000+ miles and an ocean between me and my grandparents. Sometimes I wonder what it would have been like to have grandparents like the culture tells you grandparents are like--that come to stay when your parents go away, whose house you go to for holidays, who buy you things and whatever else. (Where did I get this idea? There weren't any grandparents on television that I remember. It must have been from kids at school.) What I do have, though, is an unshakeable belief that my grandad loves me and supports me unconditionally. I suppose I live in fear that he'll die without me seeing him again, which probably will happen eventually. Even if it's slightly morbid, I was relieved when I realised my emergency savings would cover a list minute ticket.
posted by hoyland at 8:22 PM on September 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

I would have picked "Hello in There" for the more apt, if depressing John Prine song.

I should probably call my surviving grandparents tomorrow.
posted by ghharr at 8:27 PM on September 10, 2011 [2 favorites]

I propose that from here on out every MetaFilter thread include at least one link to a John Prine song.

My 96-year-old Granny, the one that's 1/4 Blackfoot, is in a nursing home because she can no longer hear or see anything. She drove a car until she was 91,and climbed the Yaquina Head lighthouse stairs every year just to prove she could, until she was 94, but now none of us can get to her inside of her head, although she's still in there. So I'm posting this one for her.
posted by Devils Rancher at 8:28 PM on September 10, 2011

I would have picked "Hello in There" for the more apt, if depressing John Prine song.

I dunno about "more apt". Hello In There is about old people. Grandpa Was a Carpenter is about grandpa.

Now, if it weren't "Grandparent's Day", but rather, say, Japan's "Respect for the Aged Day", I'd agree with you.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 8:31 PM on September 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

Good bless you, Flapjax!
posted by Mike Mongo at 8:38 PM on September 10, 2011

I'm sure my grandpa wouldn't give two shits about a Grandparent's Day song -- he'd rather have taught me how to operate a lathe.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 8:49 PM on September 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

In Austin, we celebrate tonight. With Grampage!. A yearly event invented by my friends.
posted by jbelshaw at 9:06 PM on September 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

i was standing on a chair, playing in the kitchen sink, my grandmother seated behind me, peeling apples for a pie. suddenly she began to cry and a moment later an ambulance went past in the street, carrying my grandfather, dead of a heart attack.

she met her own demise a few years later, wandering around a rooming house in the dark of night, trying to find the bathroom. the building had been stripped of it's ironwork for a wartime scrap drive and she walked out what had once been a balcony door and fell to her death on the sidewalk.

alton and elsie, i'll try to think of you tomorrow, but i'll probably forget
posted by kitchenrat at 9:07 PM on September 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

My grandpa on my mother's side, in Greenville, SC, had a garden, a fig tree (in the summer he'd start every day with a bowl of Shredded Wheat with fresh figs on top), and he kept bees. He had huge jars of honey in the house, with chunks of the honeycomb inside. On one occasion the bees stung my dad. I think my dad never forgave him for that.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 9:16 PM on September 10, 2011

I propose The Zimmers cover of "My Generation" for official song of INTERNATIONAL Grandparents Day.
 
posted by Herodios at 9:21 PM on September 10, 2011

"... Sometimes I wonder what it would have been like to have grandparents like the culture tells you grandparents are like--that come to stay when your parents go away, whose house you go to for holidays, who buy you things and whatever else. ..."
posted by hoyland at 11:22 PM on September 10

It was just great.

I'll never forget the fishy smell of a live minnow bucket my maternal grandpa carried, walking in front of me, down to Platte River sandpit ponds, or how his long legs could do in one step, what took me three. I'll never forget him laughing and helping me pull in a bullhead so big it nearly pulled me in. I'll never forget how he showed me how to burnish a fresh burr on a wood scraper, or sharpen a long plane blade by hand on an oilstone, and I still have that oilstone, just as I have, and play, the fiddle that he played at 20 years of east Nebraska barn dances and weddings, which he played and called (in English and German) as a fiddler and well known square dance caller.

I remember, still, 55+ years on, the smell of cinnamon and yeast in his wife's kitchen, as she baked breads and breakfast rolls. I remember that she'd pinch off a little bit of yeasty dough, and dip it in sprinkled sugar, and more cinnamon, and give it me, because I just couldn't wait for the baking to finish. I remember her holding me in both arms, in their garden, as huge Nebraska thunderstorms built in the big sky near us, and her calling her husband to come open the storm cellar, so we could get down there. And I remember her crying with me, as I promised never to lie again to her, when she caught me in a lie, about age 5, and for the sake of her tears then, I never lied to her again, so long as she lived. I'd be quiet sometimes, but I never said a word to that woman, that I didn't know was true.

I remember going out with my paternal grandfather to his garden, and following him in amongst the leafy, tall, close planted corn rows in late August, as we looked for sweet, creamy Silver Queen ears that were ripe to pick, for that evening's dinner. And I remember how he took off the trunk lid of his '61 Dodge Pioneer, the better to load and drive down to my mother, 500 miles south in Kansas, a pedal organ given to her by her grandmother, which he'd paid to have electrified, with a compressor, as a birthday present to her. And I still have that organ.

And I remember my paternal grandmother, standing in her kitchen late in a fall afternoon, tying on her apron, and getting down on a little kneeling stool she had, to say prayers, and repeat some parts of the previous Sunday's Lection and Response, as her own private version of Lutheran Vespers. And I still bake her sweet cornbread from her faded, hand written pencil recipe, all these years later, when I can find fine ground white cornmeal. Like my grandpa said "If it had icing, it would pass for cake, and if I have butter, I can't pass it, at all."

They lived simply, through 2 world wars, and they made their ways together, more than 50 years together, each couple of 'em, on eastern Nebraska terms. And every hour I spent swinging in their porch swings, or eating at their tables, or playing their musical instruments, or getting spanked and then held by them, I wish I could have over again.
posted by paulsc at 9:24 PM on September 10, 2011 [8 favorites]

I only knew two of my grandparents -- my mother's father, and my father's mother. Both of them were perfectly horrid people that few missed when they were gone. He was an alcoholic racist cop and she was a fundamentalist child-beating tyrant. The world's better off without them. Sorry, but it's true.

The woman I think of as my real grandmother wasn't actually related to me -- she was an older woman who'd befriended my mother back in the 1950s. Her children were childless, so I was her adoptive grandchild, and to this day there are few people I've ever loved as much as Nanny Berman. She made me noodle kugel and always brought me birthday and Hanukah presents and I spent many happy hours with her doing jigsaw puzzles and feeding her parakeets and walking with her at the zoo (she lived right across the street from it, so sometimes mom would drop me off at her apartment so she could have some alone time and Nanny Berman and I would spend the afternoon there, eating ice cream and throwing peanuts to the monkeys).

Sometimes you CAN pick your family.
posted by BitterOldPunk at 10:06 PM on September 10, 2011 [10 favorites]

No love for Clive Dunn? Quite right too.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 1:45 AM on September 11, 2011

Not being much for all these Days of various kinds, mothers, fathers, pancakes etc this one will undoubtedly pass unobserved. But then I'm not a Murrikan. I am nontheless a grandfather and as such a never ending source of cute anecdotes. Adjusts grey beard, settles back i rocking chair and rheumy eyes stare thoughtfully into the middle distance....
Walking home some years ago with my youngest son, then aged three, clasping one hand and my oldest grand-daughter then aged four clasping the other. She stopped by the greek restaurant with loads of souvlaki eaters at the pavement tables and adressed a couple who paused with loaded forks and smiled indulgently at what she had to say. You know whats weird? she said Him and pointed at wee Sasha, my son, He is my grandaddy. Turned out they didnt speak swedish so were not unduly impressed.

Perhaps it would work better as a song
posted by jan murray at 1:58 AM on September 11, 2011

Not being much for all these Days of various kinds, mothers, fathers, pancakes etc...

Pancake day? Ooh, ooh! Tell me more!
posted by flapjax at midnite at 2:04 AM on September 11, 2011

Just made me realize that yesterday - without any knowledge of Grandparents' Day - I prepared and ate my Grandfather's favorite meal. My Grandfather was born in 1890 in Kriuljany, in today's Republic of Moldova. Every Friday we would go to my Grandparents apartment in the Bronx for shabbes, and have chicken soup for dinner. We kids would get boiled legs and breast meat and vegetables after the soup. But my grandmother would then bring the "special plate" out for my Zeyde to enjoy all by himself: gargele! Chicken necks. Ever since then I have had a life long hankering for chicken necks. Boney, stringy, nasty chicken necks. Essentially, necks were all my Dad's family could afford for meat during the depression. Guess that there was some kind of karmic connection that made me boil up a pot of chicken soup and gnaw down on some necks yesterday. With horseradish.
posted by zaelic at 2:29 AM on September 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

Sure thing, flapjax.
But you may be a tad disapointed.

This is England. What's more England in the fifties.
We had then something called Pancake Day.
I vaguely remember it was one of those weird days around Easter like Maundy thursday and Shrove tuesday. Probably one of those that Christians had made out of ancient pagan festivals to facilitate conversion. Anyway on said day we would eat pancakes. Thin ones. And with lemon juice and white sugar on so they were scrunchy. Bliss ensued. Don't know why we never ate them any other time. Perhaps it was considered a sin and punishable by excommunication.

Don't believe boring old Wikipedia versions
posted by jan murray at 2:31 AM on September 11, 2011 [2 favorites]

Pancake day? Ooh, ooh! Tell me more!

Pancake Day? It's the day preceding Ash Wednesday and is also known as Shrove Tuesday.
posted by Mister Bijou at 2:33 AM on September 11, 2011

Yes. In New Orleans they have Mardi Gras. In the UK we have pancakes.
posted by Grangousier at 2:58 AM on September 11, 2011

I'm 36, and still have three of my four grandparents (all late 80s). My paternal grandfather died a two years ago, after a long stretch of pneumonic episodes and a short battle with Alzheimer's. He was to the point that he still knew Grandma, knew my dad about 50% of the time, but I was just "young man". We visited him in the convalescent home, where he was recuperating from the latest bout of pneumonia, on his birthday, and brought the same thing he always wanted for his birthday - pie made with fresh-picked apples, a la mode. When I was leaving, he shook my hand and said with perfect clarity, "Thanks, Chris, for coming. I really appreciate it."

Two days later he was gone. At least I got one last recognition out of him.

RIP, Frankie.
posted by notsnot at 7:22 AM on September 11, 2011

My grandparents died when I was small, after making sure we kids understood how unhappy they all were.

When it appeared there might be little kinnakeets, my mother told me firmly, "don't expect me to do any babysitting, I'm too old for that." My Dad was already dead, my father-in-law was a self-absorbed asshat and his ex-wife had Alzheimer's.

So now, no kids, no grandkids, no grandparents. And frankly, life may be lonely sometimes, but it sure is simple.
posted by kinnakeet at 8:11 AM on September 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

I never knew my grandparents but I'm glad my kids got to know theirs. My son spent a lot of time with my mother after my father died and we moved home. I believe my favorite memory is coming to pick him up at my mom's house one evening after I'd been working late or something. He was about 9 and she was in her late 70s and they were playing Monopoly. They were both cheating, denying it and completely furious with each other. The kitchen I walked into was a tense scene reminiscent of a Sergio Leone saloon. "He cheats," said my mother dramatically, "And I don't know what will become of him." "That's not true!" shouted my son, "She cheated first! I saw you hide that $500 grandma, I saw it!"

It is tender and heart warming moments like this that make up the golden fabric of American life and incidentally remind me, now that I am old and gray, to yet again tell my now more or less adult son to for Christ's sake make sure he's using birth control.
posted by mygothlaundry at 8:40 AM on September 11, 2011 [5 favorites]

Just wanted to drop in and say my son and I just Facetimed the grandparents to say hi and we were told to call back later, they were watching the 9/11 coverage on TV.

Yeah, grandkids are nice and all but NEVER FORGET.

/off to the beach now to play and hug my kid lots and generally ignore media and churches and politicians...
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 8:47 AM on September 11, 2011 [2 favorites]

Yes. In New Orleans they have Mardi Gras. In the UK we have pancakes.

Episcopal churches in the U.S. also do Shrove Tuesday pancakes, fwiw (maybe other denominations do too? I have no idea). Incidentally, my maternal grandfather was an Episcopal priest. He died too young, and I wish I'd known him better.
posted by naoko at 10:01 AM on September 11, 2011

I remember as a kid asking my mum why there wasn't a Kids Day since there was a Mother's Day, Father's Day and Grandparents day. She told me that every day was Kids Day. Considering what I went through growing up, it made me very confused.
posted by deborah at 2:53 PM on September 11, 2011

Because my grandmother is from New Jersey, I guess my daily 'listen to Gaslight Anthem to keep from cracking up' ritual was actually in tribute to her.
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 12:33 AM on September 12, 2011

I miss my Grandparents. We used to spend every weekend with my maternal grandparents when my parents were busy working the restaurant and I loved it. My grandfather died when I was 15, my grandmother only passed a few years ago. I still talk to them.
Thanks flapjax.
posted by arcticseal at 1:26 AM on September 12, 2011

Seriously missing my grandparents right now, actually. One granddad was at Iwo Jima; another card-sharked his way through several submarines in the Navy. My maternal grandmother met him when they were kids, picking cotton on an East Texas farm.

After the war ended, they worked in factories across the street from each other; she made Vassarette undergarments, while he made Curtis Mathis televisions. All that physical labor (plus a lifetime of smoking) killed my pawpaw when I was 11; nanny outlived him and her second husband only to die right in front of me on the day after Christmas in 2005. I'm glad I was there; she wasn't alone when the fear came over her, and I was holding her hand until the very end.

My granddaddy on my dad's side told me before he passed that he saw my grandmother walking down the street one day and told his Army buddy: "If that woman looks as good from the front as she does from the back, I'm going to marry her." He followed her into the store where she worked selling penny candy and asked her out on a date right then; they married 7 months later.

When I was 12 and my parents split, my paternal grandparents took me in and I lived with them until I was 17 and moved away. Without them, I'd have been a mess; probably an asshole, too. Thank god they were there for me. It still hurts when my eye skims across the word "Grandmother" or "Granddad" in the card section of the store, because they were with me as recently as 2009.

My childhood friends spent a lot of time in high school at their house, eating up all the food and gossiping about school, boys and working on the yearbook together. My grandmother loved living vicariously through us; she'd plan trips to the nearest city each August for me and my two closest friends to go shopping for school clothes, and she'd take us to plays and fancy restaurants to teach us "how to become social young ladies with good manners in public." When she finally passed a couple of years ago (July of 2009), they called each other across three states and collaborated on a huge flower arrangement for her funeral. I'll never forget it; it meant a great deal to me that they were loved not just in our own family, but by the community that surrounded us.

In many ways, my grandparents had more bearing on the person I've become than my own parents did. I'm a day late to this thread, but thanks for posting it!
posted by Unicorn on the cob at 9:35 AM on September 12, 2011