Editor’s Note: This was the last editorial that was written by longtime Gazette employee Mary Anna McClenny on June 12, 1984. Mrs. McClenny died Thursday and as a remembrance we are reprinting it.
The baseball gloves, the plastic ball and two small bats are no longer resting by the back door. The “Star Trek” cassettes are no longer scattered around the tape player, and the 60 old marbles at the bottom of the marble game are silent. The shampoo bottle is nearly empty and the music from “Footloose” no longer blares forth in the late night hours. The little grandsons and the 12-year-old granddaughter have gone back home.
Grandpa finally found the lid to the garbage pail. It had been used as a shield. (The stick that became a sword each day was placed beside it.) If he is lucky, the rain will revive the bare spots in the grass where the batters and pitchers stood. If grandmother is lucky, she will remember to put away the recipe for the rhubarb-strawberry cobbler that her granddaughter enjoyed baking and eating. Her rose bushes will probably recover from being hit dozens of times with the Whiffle Ball.
“The Children’s Hour” storybook goes back on the shelf. Grandmother breaths a sigh of relief that she saved it from her childhood, and that her grandsons enjoy it as much as her children did. The old United States puzzle, with a few pieces missing, is stashed back in the basement, along with Husker Do, Etch-a-Sketch and the Spirograph sets.
It’s the voices you miss the most after your children have taken their children back home. It seems so quiet after all the repeats of “Grandpa I love you,” “Please play catch with me,” “Please fix me a glass of juice,” “Please read me a story,” “Please help me build with my Lego blocks,” or “Please take me shopping for my new album — I’ve saved my money for it.”
The sweetest moments of all may have been when the young children talked with their great-grandmothers. They were given the little treats that only a great-grandmother can think of — a little dish of fresh strawberries from the garden, a treat from her favorite box of chocolates, or a pretty little bag of birdseed (used instead of rice at her granddaughter’s wedding).
It was a great week! All four generations are looking forward to the next visit.
Mary Anna McClenny