I take my role as a grandma quite seriously and as such I believe that one of my responsibilities is to tell my grandchildren about things of the past. You know -- the olden days.... like the 70's and even before that. My grandson refers to these adventures into the days of yore as "olde timey". Neither he, nor my granddaughter roll their eyes when I lapse into such tales ...yet, but... I am preparing myself as I can sort of feel that coming. Anyway -- we have had several conversations about long-ago things. In relation to these "look-backs", here's the concern of the day.... In explaining some details of life and times when I was growing up without television and including a mention of the whole black&white thing evolving eventually into color situation in both TV's and Brownie cameras, I guess I created some major confusion in the mind of my 4 year old granddaughter, who is now thoroughly convinced that prior to the mid-50's, there was no color in the world -- that TV shows lacked color because the world was black&white -- that cameras took black&white photos for the same reason. Here's the problem -- she is sort of like me when I get an idea in my mind -- sometimes it is hard to let it go. Is that tendency to hang on a bit hereditary?
To my acute frustration, I don't seem to be able to fix this. Believe me I have tried. It would be easier at this point to just let it go -- no harm really. Eventually she will figure it out and in the mean time? We can just hope she doesn't bring it up in conversation... or at school... or on a college application. But -- here's an additional complication. I am not sure that people believe me when I tell them that my Granddaughter came up with this on her own. It seems that I may have told my own daughter one time that when Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden of Eden, that they were banished to a small far eastern country that will remain nameless at this time. I have absolutely no recollection of telling her this. None! Honestly, I do not remember that at all. I do confess to perpetrating the whole Santa Claus, Tooth Fairy, Easter Bunny "things". I totally own that. And -- I do remember that I once told an entire English class of students that William Shakespeare sold real estate and wrote plays on the side -- in his spare time, but in all fairness... that is not entirely untrue. William Shakespeare did invest in land as a part of earning a livelihood. Honest. Google him if you don't believe me.
Now that I am considering all of this... I think that I may have even told my grandkids about some of their ancestors who came from Rotterdam to NYC in a schooner and then traveled cross country in a wagon to settle in nearby Clymer, New York. I do hope I remembered to mention that the wagon was pulled by mules or horses, so that they do not get an incorrect mental image of a couple traveling in a little red wagon with all their earthly possessions. If I haven't shared this story with them, I will be sure to do that at some point. Family history is interesting and sometimes important. I remember that my Mom loved to embellish a story a little bit. It made things more interesting. Perhaps I inherited this tendency from her. Perhaps that is an olde timey tidbit in and of itself. Kids should know from whom they come. They can be better prepared that way or maybe understand themselves a little better at some point. Such tendencies are not the worst thing that a person could inherit. Right? Sometimes life can use a little additional color... a black&white world is way too drab. Can we leave the black and white to the Historians? Actually they have been known to color things up a bit themselves. Oh my....
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