GRANDMA ELLEN: A MISSPENT YOUTH?

he list is taped to the refrigerator. Gramps Mordy and I are in Boston for the weekend, youth-sitting our son’s two children: Anna, almost 12 and Ben, almost 10. The list is fourteen items in length and tells us the schedules of each child for the two-plus days that we will be staying with them. The items are many and varied, and were compiled by our daughter-in-law.

1. Anna – to Katherine’s for a sleepover Friday night. Katherine’s mother will pick Anna up after dinner at 7:30. Please be sure she packs her toothbrush, toothpaste, pajamas, hairbrush, bathrobe, book to read, and clothes for tomorrow.

2. Daniel, Ben’s friend, to sleep over at our house. His mother will drop him off at 7:00. If left to their own devices, the boys would spend the entire night playing computer games. Please limit their playing to 45 minutes. Then they can make popcorn (with the popcorn maker you gave Ben last year for Hanukkah) if they like. If they don’t want to do that, they can bake chocolate chip cookies. Both boys like to bake, but they will need a bit of help from you assembling the ingredients and putting the cookie sheets into the oven. Please see that they are in bed and asleep by 10:00. (We let the kids stay up a bit later on weekend nights.)

Saturday

3.The boys wake early. They will want to play computer games again. Please limit their play this morning to half an hour. Ben and Daniel love blueberry pancakes and love to help make them. We still have some of the wild blueberries we picked last summer together in Maine in the downstairs freezer. Ben knows exactly where they are.

4. Anna needs to be picked up at Katherine’s at 10:30. Directions to Katherine’s house are attached. It is a seven-minute ride from our house. Please make sure Anna brings home everything she took with her.

5. Anna has a swim meet at 1:00 this afternoon. The natatorium is at the community center in Newton Center. (Directions attached). It is 8 minutes from our house. Please remind Anna to take her swimsuit, cap and rubber shoes. (She knows what to put them into). Towels are provided at the meet. It lasts for three hours, of which Anna will swim for less than ten minutes. It is very hot and very moist in the swimming area. Sorry!

6. Ben has a soccer game at 1:30. You will have to ‘divide and conquer’. One of you can go to Anna’s swim meet, and the other to Ben’s soccer game. Ben’s soccer paraphernalia is in the hall closet downstairs. It takes him a while to get all of it on; so be sure to allow enough time for him to do that. The soccer field is a hop, skip and a jump from here. Ben will be able to give you directions.

7. Both children need to take showers when they get home from their respective athletic activities.

8. Dinner on your own. You and the children can decide if you all want to order pizza in or go to Paddyo’s Pub in Newton. If you get home early enough, they can choose a movie to watch. (We have one from Netflix and three from the Blockbuster in town).

9. The children should be in bed by 9:30 tonight. They both have to go to Sunday school tomorrow. They may read for 15 minutes before lights out.

Sunday

10. Wake Anna and Ben at 8:30. Encourage them to eat breakfast promptly and then to get dressed without dawdling. (Warning: Neither of them likes Sunday school, and they will try to talk you out of making them go. Be firm!!) Sunday school starts at 9:15, and the temple is about 10 minutes from our house (directions attached).

11. Sunday school ends at 12:30. We usually go into the building to retrieve them. Meet them at the exit on the main floor.

12. Lunch right after Sunday school. The children will tell you what they’d like to have. Ben usually wants grilled cheese and Anna will eat any number of things, depending upon what we have in the pantry.

13. Preparations for school on Monday. After lunch, both of the children need to do their homework. Anna has at least an hour and a half’s worth of work (the Winsor school believes in really piling the homework on! I guess the headmaster there figures that, given the incredible cost of the tuition, parents expect their kids to work hard and achieve) and Ben has about 45 minutes.

14. Ben needs to practice his trumpet. He should play each piece twice, being sure to go over any parts he muffs. He likes to play the trumpet; so all you need to do is remind him to practice.

We will return at about 4:00 p.m. on Sunday. Marc will take you to the airport at 4:30 for your 6:00 p.m. flight home. We hope the schedule isn’t too much of a trial.

Rewind to 1950: Grandma Ellen ‘s youthful weekend.

Saturday morning. I go out of my house and walk up the street to the empty lot where all the kids who live close by are gathering for a game of Kick-the-Can.

After about 45 minutes, some of us start to wander off to pursue other pastimes: playing checkers; jumping rope; riding bikes around the neighborhood; roller skating; climbing trees (that’s one of my favorite activities). When we’ve had enough of the communal games, we go home to our respective houses for lunch.

Saturday afternoon. Two other friends and I walk the eight long blocks into the center of town to go to the movies. The cost to see two movies is $.25. Afterwards, we walk back home and have supper with our families. At my house on Saturday evening, we have a light supper – peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, milk and chips this evening because we have had a heavy lunch.

For dessert, there is cake. I tell my mother that I don’t want the supper. She says I have to eat the sandwich before I can have the cake. I get up from the table, go into my room, open up the window and throw the sandwich out onto the driveway below. I return to the kitchen and tell my mother that I ate the sandwich. She isn’t fooled, but she gives me the cake, anyway.

Sunday morning. I walk to Sunday school with my friends. The boys in the class throw spitballs at the girls, and the teacher tells them not to do it. When I grow up, I remember the spitball routine but not much of what I was supposed to learn.

I DO remember a happy, carefree childhood.



Ellen Baron is a wife, mother and grandmother who has had three distinctive careers:
1) as an editor at an educational laboratory;
2) as a businesswoman who ran a private-label group at Black & Decker, and then served as Director of Marketing for a consumer electronics start-up company; and
3) as an academic administrator who was director of a post-baccalaureate business program.

Her 'Just Jobs' (as opposed to "Careers") included piano teacher and French tutor (her undergraduate degree from Washington University in St. Louis having been in French).

Now retired from both careers and jobs, Ellen serves on the Maryland State Attorney Grievance Commission, as well as the Boards of several non-profits. She has lived in England, Switzerland and Germany, as well as St. Louis, Boston, a suburb of Washington, D.C., and, now, Baltimore, MD.