Old-Fashioned Manners at Granny Camp

 

I was in love with Mrs. Brianchi, my preschool teacher. I asked my mother once why Mrs. Brianchi sat over a back wheel of the bus. “I think she likes the bumpy ride,” my mother said.

 

So of course I married a preschool teacher. I knew I would be surrounded by children through our married life. First, there was her son Chris. Besides a daughter of our own and a bunch of foster children, we had summer camps at Oak Grove.

 

There were three soccer camps for Sara and her friends from Arlington. Pickett hired the Halifax County Middle School soccer coach to teach them. They even got to play the middle school team. The next year we had to keep the 10-year-old girls from flirting with a good looking male coach from Washington.

 

Then there were bike camps, where I helped the kids to ride. A horse camp. There were even adult camps—couples workshops, college reunions, meditation weekends and a journaling retreat this July 28-30.

 

Nowadays the big staple is Granny Camps. Just about every year, Pickett has had four grandchildren from her previous marriage or two from this one to come and frolic on the farm. This year, they are all gathering for her 80^th birthday in August.

 

At a Granny Camp in July, Bryce and Aria found there is no free lunch. Everybody cooks. Pickett is a lot more patient than I am at teaching them to mix up waffle batter. Table manners are required, or you leave the table. If you raise your inside voice too much, you have to run once around the house outside (a big house.). 

 

No electronic tablets allowed. Children are required to read books, and so most have gotten better at it. At this year’s Granny Camp we  acted out the Harry Potter story. We had brooms for Quidditch matches, tons of envelopes for Harry’s invitation to Hogwarts, and lots of wizard capes and Harry Potter glasses. I am not sure how to act out an invisibility cloak. Our three dogs played the three-headed dog masterfully but were shocked when the children screamed.

 

There are times when the kids drive us nuts. I had to cancel one board game when one child knocked over the pieces. They can be endlessly loud and silly. One squirted me with the hose when playing in the yard. They complain that I am grumpy. So be it!

 

 I had to cajole and argue with Bryce to get him to read me a book. 

All of a sudden, he read me five! I was ecstatic.

 

I was kind of dejected one night, recovering from a long illness. Aria asked me to sing to them at bedtime.  I told them I sang “What a  Wonderful World”  at their parents’ wedding at Oak Grove.   I really got into the song with them. “I hear babies cry and watch them grow. They’ll learn much more than I’ll ever know.”

 

 “That’s your best song,” Bryce said as they applauded and then went to sleep.

 

Yes, I think to myself, what a wonderful world!