Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Senators and grammars

When E was born, we called my parents and told my mother she was a senator again. She first became a senator when my brother became a father. He had asked her what she wanted his children to call her. She was thinking of words like grandmom, grandma, granny, etc. and said she didn't really care, so he decided to call her senator.

For better or for worse, senator didn't stick when E came along. For us, she became Grammar Jean.

Grammar Jean and Gramper (by extension) Hiram are visiting us this week. Thus it is that we get to hear poetry from Walt Kelly's Pogo, which my mother committed to memory in her earliest youth and is inspired to recite as occasions demand.

"Do you herd sheep?" my gra[mmar] said;
My grandpa leapt in fright.
"That grammar's wrong to me!" he cried.
"'Have you heard sheep?' is right."

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