| Banks County Opinions... |
NOVEMBER 20, 2002 |
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Editorial Our Views Crucial need for literacy center
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Column  Grandparent logic Sometimes, the gap of understanding between the generations is something that can’t ever be negotiated. But, every now and then, the generations can reach an agreement on things that just sound plain dumb or make brilliant sense. Such is the case with some recent conversations with my grandparents, ages 78 and 73. A few years ago, my grandmother noticed I was wearing a long-sleeved red shirt that read, “Mount Kesler. 100 miles of fun in the snow since 1977.” She immediately asked me about my snow-time adventure. “Kerri, you went skiing?” she inquired. “No, grandma. It’s just a shirt that I liked at American Eagle that was on sale.” “Oh, well, where’s Mt. Kesler? I’ve never heard of that.” “It doesn’t exist, grandma, it was just on the shirt that I bought.” “But, how did you buy the shirt if the place doesn’t exist?” “No, grandma, I bought the shirt at American Eagle because it was cute and I liked it. There is no Mt. Kesler. American Eagle made it up for the T-shirt. And I’ve never been skiing.” “But I still don’t understand how you can buy the T-shirt, Kerri.” “Well, grandma, if you look in my closet you’ll see that I’m the Athletic Department at The Gap, I play soccer for Abercombie and Fitch and I play rugby for Old Navy. And all of those organizations were probably created in the 1970s.” “Kerri, you play rugby?!?” “No, grandma! I bought the T-shirt that says I play rugby because it was cute and all of the clothing stores offer shirts telling people we do stuff that we’ll never do, like visit a hot dog stand in Iowa.” “See now, Kerri. That just doesn’t make sense to me,” my grandmother huffed. After that conversation, I never bought another T-shirt advertising something I wasn’t—no matter how cute the shirt was. It’s just stupid, as I now see. My grandparents, who live in Waco, Texas, had a few other random comments about common sense when they visited me recently. I wrote down some of their remarks on a newspaper article my grandmother gave me called, “Iceman’s last meal included venison and wild goat.” Now, I don’t know why my grandmother saw that article in her local newspaper and thought about me, but in any case, she brought it from Texas to Georgia. As we were driving around the North Georgia Mountains, my grandparents pointed out a few things, such as the common sense of “Falling Rocks” signs. “How the heck am I supposed to be looking for falling rocks as I drive along this curvy, mountain road,” my grandfather said. “I ain’t got time to watch for falling rocks.” Around that time, my grandmother asked me about the growing frequency of wacky and sometimes irrelevant commercials on television. “Do y’all have those crazy commercials?” she asked. “Boy, I’ll tell you, we’ve got all them crazy commercials. Everything has to be stupid nowadays for someone to buy it. And I think it’s those crazy commercials that are making society crazy. If we didn’t have those crazy commercials, everybody would be normal.” Umm, mind you, my grandparents live in Waco (insert crazy people joke here). On the day they visited, it was a clear, blue sky day—except for a few, small clouds that almost seemed out of place. Naturally, my grandmother had her reasons for the lonely clouds: “Why did the smokers have to ruin the day? If we didn’t have all them smokers, we wouldn’t have those few clouds floating around on such a pretty day.” Common sense or not, maybe I’ll have my “grandparent sayings” and logic someday (Dear God, help me now). Kerri Graffius is a reporter for MainStreet Newspapers. Her email address is kerri@mainstreetnews.com. |
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