I mentioned during another post that my grandpa died when I was 21. My cousin was about 6 at the time. Grandpa and grandma were living near her family, but she never got to spend time at their home in Renton like my sisters and I did. Unfortunately, I don't have that many grandpa stories myself. Either I don't remember everything, or the memories have faded. Grandpa was more of a feeling and an experience anyway. Not something you can explain or put into words. Grandpa was love and security. You knew he loved you no matter what happened or what anyone said. It was a knowing that no one could take away.
As much as I like to think I'm the only one with a grandpa or a sister relationship. My sisters have stories of time spent with other sisters and their own time spent with grandpa and occasionally I am surprised to hear this stuff because I didn't even know it was going on.
Anyway, one summer when I was about 13, the sisters and I were sent to the grandparents for part of the summer. Since I started my menstrual cycle that summer, I decided I was old enough to shave my legs and armpits, and not ask the mom for permission.
I'm going to digress here for a minute because I cannot believe how archaic the old razors were. Are there any women out there that remember how you could just about shave off all the skin on your shin if you just barely did the wrong thing??? I mean OMG!!! What a mess and boy did it hurt.
Back to the grandpa story.
As I began my shaving the legs adventure, there were commercials for Nair. Now after having one of those shin skin incidents, Nair was sounding pretty interesting. I had even brought some home and was thinking hard about trying it, but the fact that the chemicals burned off the hair did not sound really cool to me. I am a very cautious person by nature and I try not to do anything that would hurt me or cause pain.
Grandpa stayed up later than grandma did and he liked to watch the fights and sometimes old movies. We both hated Cal Worthington car commercials! I was telling him that I bought this Nair stuff, how it worked, and that I was considering using it. After I explained the method employed, he looked at me with concern and asked to see the package. He read the directions that explained you should do a test patch somewhere on your leg before applying the depilatory cream to your entire leg. This is the moment when you KNOW that you have the best grandpa in the world......he did a test patch on his very own leg. It was approximately the size of a dollar coin, maybe a smidgen bigger. The darn stuff worked and my grandpa had a bare spot on his leg. However, after he read the chemical list he told me he thought I should not use that stuff. It was kind of smelly anyway so it wasn't hard to agree with him. It just seemed so natural for him to do that. I will remember that bare spot for as long as I live and have a good memory/mind.
Grandpa liked to watch the golf tournaments as well as baseball. Sometime we'll talk about Vida Blue and the world series.
Thank you, Cousin. That is so sweet. - CeCe
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