Published: August 25, 2008 09:56 pm            

Cathie Shaffer: Riding with the Grannies

My mother got her picture taken to celebrate her birthday. So while a bunch of us were gathered “up home” for a niece-in-law’s baby shower and the NASCAR race in Michigan, we perused the pictures and chose our favorites.

A chance remark on how the Gramma in the pictures certainly didn’t look like someone who would nail you in the back of the head with a icy snowball got us to thinking on the advantages of age.

As Grandkid Two said, her Gramma could play mailbox baseball and no one would ever believe it was her. All she’d have to do is smile her sweet, grandmotherly smile and point toward the shaved-head, tattooed kid down the street and the cops would roar off with their blue lights twirling.

That set us to imagining a Granny Patrol of 80-somethings who would tool through town at ten miles an hour, left turn signal blinking, setting the world to rights.

With Beulah at the wheel, Gertrude would ride shotgun with a bullhorn in her hands. When one of them or their backseat passengers sighted an offender, the Granny Patrol would swing in to action.

“Pull your pants up, sonny,” Gertrude would bellow at a gangsta poser with a do rag on his head and the waist line of his pants somewhere between mid-thigh and knee.

“Put some clothes on!” the “girls” would bellow at a young thing walking down the street in halter top and low-slung shorts, a tattoo decorating the small of her back.

Around and around they’d roll, yelling at people to pick up their own trash or to slow down for Pete’s sake before they hit someone.

Could be, once they got rolling, the Granny Patrol might start stepping up its act. That old Caddy could get some hydraulics to bounce up and down at the red lights, blasting old Dean Martin tunes from the pumped-up stereo system and wearing their bib aprons backwards as a sign of solidarity.

Maybe then the image of senior citizen would move from walkers and rocking chairs to Grandpa busting a move to “That’s Amore” in a burger joint parking lot on a Saturday night.

CATHIE SHAFFER can be reached at (606) 473-9851.

        

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