Nanny and Bumpy

Nanny and Bumpy

I grew up in Cornish NH, a rolling Currier and Ives town situated on the banks of the Connecticut River. Its claim to fame is the longest covered bridge east of the Mississippi, St. Gauden’s mansion, and of course, the event that quickens every Grammar school kid’s pulse at the mere mention…the Cornish Fair. I grew up within ½ mile from my grandparents, my Aunt and Uncle and a slew of cousins. I didn’t know until much later what a lucky girl I was to grow up so close to so many people who loved me.
.
Most of the time when I would run into the old farmhouse to greet Nanny, I found her with a cigarette in one hand, a Harlequin romance novel in the other hand and General Hospital blaring on the TV. She would set her book down to receive my hug. She would ask me if I wanted a cookie, to which she would say, “Well go get them, you know where they are!” After snack time was finished she would ask, “Well what are we going to do now?” I always hoped to make something with Nanny. No one could create something out of nothing like my Nanny.

Nanny was the “McGyver” of Arts and Crafts. She could take a bit of felt, a pipe cleaner, 3 inches of rick-rack, an odd button, and “BAM”, we’d make a puppy dog change purse with a button nose. To collect her various craft treasures we would have to go “upstairs” which was a veritable potpourri of junk. Well, that’s what it looked like to the untrained eye. However, to Nanny, who saw a loose organization to all the chaos in her upstairs rooms, it was the starting point of genius. She saw potential in everything. As we stepped over strewn boxes of cut up egg cartons, wooden wafers, Styrofoam balls, Popsicle sticks, she was like a cat on the hunt. Over boxes of Harlequin romances she had already read, with long since forgotten plots, was the perfect shade of eggplant colored felt. If the going got too rough, she’d send my spindly frame diving over a heap, with orders to, “Open that box”. More often than not it would be just where Nanny had placed it years earlier, when others would have thrown it away. But Nanny didn’t throw away anything. She saw potential in it all.

Bumpy was a stoic man of little words. He was bald, with a bump on his head. So it was logical for all of us grandkids to call him “Bumpy”. He was the stereotypical Yankee, his mantra which he told me many times was “Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without.” In my eyes Bumpy could fix anything. When I was 16, we had to know the basic workings of an engine for Driver’s Ed class. My Dad was away on business trip and my Mom sent me to Bumpy. He cracked the hood of his old wood truck, and in an hours time he gave me a crash course in the workings of a carburetor, and alternator, the fan belt, sparkplugs and many other essential parts. As he rattled off the information I stood in awe of him. He would point and pry the different parts of the weather beaten truck with his worn and wrinkled hands. Oh how I wish I had taped recorded that conversation. The years have cruelly dimmed the soft sound of his voice in my treasure trove of memories. At the age of 16 the thought never occurred to me that he wouldn’t always be there.

Bumpy had a special love for the family dogs. He didn’t have one of his own, but he adopted ours. Many times Bump would show up in the driveway, and invite Sammy to ride to the bank with him. Sammy was our beloved wire-haired terrier mongrel, whose head was much too small for her bulbous body. She always loved going with Bumpy because he didn’t just give out treats, he gave out dog “cookies”.
My grandparents have long since passed away. As the years have marched on, adulthood has tarnished the pristine memories of these two people I held dear. Adulthood has a way of injecting a good dose of reality into many things we first see through a child’s eye. Nanny smoked too much. Bumpy was stubborn, and sometimes prone to a bad temper. But I never saw those sides of my grandparents. The Nanny and Bumpy I remember as a child were the most wonderful grandparents a girl could hope for. Isn’t that the way it should be? I hope that my kids can remember my parents in the unspoiled light of innocence. I hope they see all the wonderful and talented aspects to the prior generation and hold those memories tight for as long as cruel reality will allow. Someday, they will see them for the fallible people they are, like we all are. But I hope they always keep special memories that are unblemished and innocent, like the memories I have of my Nanny and Bumpy.