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Johnnie likes tea parties and she has been having them for
half a century. When our daughters were little she bought a
child's china tea set and started having tea parties with
them. She used the tea parties to teach them etiquette and
manners.
As time
went by some of Susan??™s and Angela??™s friends were invited to
these tea parties. Then Johnnie became a teacher for these
friends also. Before long the mothers of these friends were
calling Johnnie and asking her what she was doing to their
little girls.
They
all said that their little girls had started showing better
manners then they ever had before. So Johnnie started
inviting the mothers to her tea parties. It was surprising
how much some of the mothers learned about etiquette and
manners from these tea parties. I guess their mothers had
never had tea parties with them when they were little girls.
When
our daughters got older, the child's china tea set was
packed away and the girls were busy with school activities,
so their tea parties stopped. But not the grown-ups tea
parties. Johnnie still had her tea parties with her ever
widening circle of friends.
Before
we knew it our daughters were grown young ladies and
married. Then along came grand children in the form of two
grand daughters. Out came the child's china tea set and the
tea parties started all over. Grannie (Johnnie) was at it
again - tea parties, etiquette and manners for a new
generation.
We were
in a new house in a new neighborhood by then, with new
neighbors who had kids. The tea parties continued to grow.
The boys in the neighborhood were not interested in tea
parties so Johnnie started a lending library of books for
them. We would sit out on the front porch with a box full
of children's books that we had bought in garage sales and
the kids would come and check out a book and take it home
with them.
This
went on for a while and Johnnie noticed that the Mexican
boys that lived across the street never checked out any
books. She asked the oldest one why he didn't check out a
book and he told her he couldn't read English. Johnnie
asked him if he would like to learn how and he told her he
would.
So
Johnnie started tutoring the Mexican boys in reading. Now
she had tea parties, a lending library and tutoring
classes. By then our front yard had become the gathering
place for all the kids in the neighborhood.
During
the fall, the boys would play football and the girls would
cheer them on. Johnnie taught the girls how to be cheer
leaders and do little dance steps while they were cheering.
Then she would line up the losing team and march up and down
the line and give them a pep talk. She would call them the
cowgirls and tell them if they wanted to be cowboys they
would have to try harder.
Time
marches on and now there is a great grand daughter and she
is having tea parties with Johnnie. She is also playing "t"
ball with a team from her school. I can't wait to see that
70 year old Johnnie get out in the yard and play "t" ball
with that great grand daughter. But there is a new
generation of neighbor hood kids also. Maybe they will be
the ones to play "t" ball with Chivona and Johnnie will only
have to coach. I can see Johnnie telling one of the kids to
hit the ball and then run around the bases. She will be
running along right beside the kid, saying come on this
way. Now step on this base, and this base, and this base
and back to home plate for a home run.
Well
there is one thing about our home, it is never a dull
place. There is always something going on. When Johnnie
takes one of her trips for a week or two, every kid I see
asks me when is Johnnie coming home. The Mexican boys that
Johnnie tutored now mow her yard and won??™t take pay for it.
Johnnie
is now writing a book and I don't know what it is about, but
it will be a humdinger I??™m sure.
This
morning, as she was reading the paper, she asked me if I
knew what she wanted? I said,
"No
tell me."
She
said ??¦ but no, that is a whole nother story for a different
time.
[?©
copyright 2003]
Loren Moore |
