My Grandma Part 3

Years ago, I sat down and asked my grandma a whole bunch of questions, and recorded the answers. I'm finally getting around to sharing it with you. If you are anything like me, you've heard a lot of stories, but they got so complicated I wasn't sure I understood them right. This is my attempt to understand the life of my wonderful grandmother. Enjoy!

It's a short one today! My kids are waiting to be tucked in. We'll continue where we left off...
Boy, you did move a lot.

I moved a heck of a lot.

Where in California did you live?

Mostly around Los Angeles. East Los Angeles is where the high school was, which is--now, well you can't even get into it. It's the--There were a lot of Mexicans there when I went to school there, but now it's the hell-hole of California. East LA--been on television (this must have been transcribed around 1999, to give you some sense of what Grandma is talking about.) They've done lots of shows about it. It's a slummy area, and a scary area.

Was it like that when you were growing up? Oh no. I worked during junior high school, or during my school years, at W. Woolworth Company upstairs in the office about six blocks from home and I never thought about walking. I mean it was just as safe as anything was in those years. During high school I worked at W. Woolworth's. I was upstairs in the office and I helped in the office. I did the machines, you know, the cash registers and just general office work upstairs. I wrote to my boss for years and years after I was married--well, we exchanged Christmas cards every year. And all of a sudden I didn't get any Christmas cards from him. I mean this was even after your dad was born. So I worked up there til after I was graduated and I thought I just didn't want to work there anymore. I was tired of it.

So then what did you do?

I worked other jobs, but mostly office. I always did office. Even in high school I took mainly typing, shorthand and office practice and business correspondence. Then you didn't have to go to typical college or anything. In high school you decided if you wanted to go to college and you took math and all those kinds of things, which I didn't take...(At this point we start talking about other things for a while.)

When you were a child, what did you do for fun?

I remember one time--I don't remember what grade I was in. I had a girlfriend, her name was Jeanie and I had a bicycle--oh my dad had promised me a bicycle, but he didn't buy it for me, my mother did. I remember getting this bicycle...in fact I have a picture of me with Ray_______--the one my mother didn't marry, and a little Chow dog--Pheobe. I still remember Pheobe and the bicycle and the picture. And we lived somewhere near the big, big, big, big (of course it might not be that bit) but I remember they had the colloseum and the museum--it sort of reminds me of when I went to San Fransisco--that big park there--where they had all the different museums--Candlestick Park. Anyway I remember we used to ride around the Colloseum and go to the museum--go downstairs to get to the museum all the mummies and there was a flower garden. Anyway, I remember we used to ride around on our bikes for hours. We used to have three little Mexican girlfriends. Well, I had one, and she had two sisters. I stayed with them for sleepovers and stuff. Their mother used to make tortillas you know, and stuff like that.

(Right here there was a spot on the tape that I couldn't understand, but I do remember talking about how they didn't have any good tortillas in Utah for years and years, and how much she missed real Mexican food when she first moved.)

So you asthma wasn't triggered by exercise?

No. My dad had asthma, and I guess I inherited it that way. He had asthma and he used to smoke cigerettes. I don't know. I took the tests, you know where they scratch your back and the only thing that showed up was barley. You know, so I tried some--my mother tried barley soup and barley doesn't bother me. Cigerette smoke bothers me and dust bothers me terrible. I think probably a lot of stress at different times would bring it on. And I don't know about when I was little, but as I got older, stress brought it on. And then I was never allergic to horses--we had horses here in Heber, but when the horse would wheat--I could pet them and do everything, but if a horse sneezes on me, I would break out. And real sweaty horses. I didn't find out til later when that's all we had was horses, but they have to sneeze on me or be real sweaty. Anyway, now I pretty well don't have asthma, they say you outgrow it, which I thought I did outgrow it. I didn't have too much asthma when I was in high school and then I got it again after I was married. The first attsack I had in a long time your grandpa didn't even know I had asthma. I remember we had bought a house there in California--it was real old and smelly place and damp and I had an attack and had to go to the hospital and that was the first he'd heard of it.