My Great-Grandma McElhinny lived until I think she was 94. She was a spitfire of a little lady and I'm blessed to say I knew her. Not many of my friends knew KNEW their Great-Grandma. I think I was 12 when she died.
When I was really young she lived in (crap, can't remember - need to ask Mom/Dad) in what I remember to be in the top level of a duplex. As she got older and needed more full-time help, she moved in with my Great Aunt Rita. Aunt Rita was the youngest of her 12 children and lived on the street behind my parent's house. I remember occasionally walking up to visit, or on Saturday or Sunday afternoons my mom would bring her to our house for the afternoon and dinner and then take her home later to give my Aunt Rita a break.
I remember Grandma (we just called her "Grandma" to her face) liked to sit on the front porch of my parent's house. the porch spans the entire width of the front of the house and is a great porch. It is brick and carpeted (with outdoor "carpet") and has always had comfy furniture. I remember bringing Grandma my Cabbage Patch Kids and other baby dolls for her to hold, and she would sit and rock them while she was out there, and I would show off in the front yard doing whatever kind of "gymnastics" I had learned (note, the quotes around gymnastics... they really were necessary).
I don't think they still have the same kind of problem with Japanese beetles now, I'm not sure why they would just go away, but I don't hear my mom complain about them anymore... nor do I see the "Bag-a-bug" thingy hanging in people's yards on my parent's street like we used to see when I was a kid. But, needless to say, my parent's yard had trouble with these Japanese beetles. I remember picking them out of the yard with my mom and throwing them into the Bag-a-bug to "kill" them. They had these greenish/blue wings on their backs and prickly little black legs that would kind of stick to your fingers. They were just gross.
Great-Grandma HATED these bugs. God bless her, I remember her, at eightysomething, stooping over in the front yard and picking these suckers outta the grass. Great-Grandma was hardcore. No Bag-a-bug for her! I remember picking these bugs out of the yard with her one day and she told me to go get a cup from the basement and fill it with bleach. Being a respectful and obedient little kid, I obliged, thinking on my trip down the driveway to the garage that Great Grandma might be crazy. I didn't know what she wanted with the bleach, and I couldn't understand why she was carrying around 10+ beetles and not putting them in the Bag-a-bug like my mom used to do.
I came back to the front yard with the cup full of bleach (I think I used a cup that my dad used to brush his teeth down in the basement... what did I know? I was a kid!). I handed her the cup, and she took the cup in her free hand and with the other hand, a fist full of beetles, shook that fist vigorously for a few seconds. Then, when she was convinced that the beetles were sufficiently scrambled and dizzy, she chucked the contents of her fist into the cup with the bleach and began to swirl the liquid dotted with bugs around. The beetles, dazed from the shaking, weren't able to escape. They sizzled and bubbled like they were frying in the bleach.
I was shocked. Here was this little old religious lady, a few stitches of curls on the top of her head, in a dress with pantyhose (or at least knee highs), permanently hunched over due to a spine problem, glasses with lenses like Coke bottles savagely shaking the crap outta beetles and sizzling them to their death. Rock on, Great Grandma! I love you!
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