Grandma’s Lesson
By James Parsons

This summer I had a dream of an earthquake at my grandparents' house. They live in a sprawling, white stone ranch house in a modestly rich suburb of Wilmington, Delaware, near minor DuPont heirs and ex-congressmen and the like. In the dream I was at their house with several friends and acquaintances, but my grandparents were not there. I was in the hallway with a particular girl when the ground started to split and we feared that the ceiling might come down on us. There were people in the basement that we ran to rescue, but as we approached the stairs the fault really tore open beneath our feet, so we turned and leaped outside instead. On the kelly green front lawn huge rifts were forming, sections of earth rising or falling in great mismatched planes. Ground water started to flood out of the cracks. It wasn't particularly scary or upsetting. We just wanted to stay out from under any falling trees or buildings and Frogger-hop our way from one hunk of solid ground to another. It would be over soon and no one would be hurt.

I had this dream while staying at my grandparents' other house, a two bedroom cottage my Pop designed and built in a small development called Hazelmoor on Maryland's Eastern shore of the Chesapeake Bay. It's been the Parsons clan summer retreat for about 50 years. A couple days before this I had asked my grandmother how she would feel about my inviting a group of friends out to the cottage some time, for a long weekend perhaps, now that they've just installed heating and a/c and also considering that my friends and I are older now and financially able to take cross-country vacations together. I would also love to be able to invite any women that I might date to a romantic escape on the white sand beach, but I figured that Grandma didn't need to consider my romantic sexual designs as part of her answer.

Grandma was not keen on the idea. Sexy babe fantasies notwithstanding.

In fact, it was Sunday that I asked her about coming out there with friends. On Wednesday she was still listing reasons why it would never, ever happen until she was dead and buried, and even then she was certain it would be a terrible idea. "Do you have any idea how to run this place?!?" she asked. "What would you do if there were a storm coming? Do you know what to do with the boats? How to close up the house? What if the power fails or a tree comes down on the roof? What do you know about preparing this place for guests? Getting food and supplies and making sure everything is ready? And cleaning up afterwards? What do your friends know about anything? What are you going to do in an emergency -- explain everything to all these people who have no idea what they're doing, and you don't even know, you've never done this before, you've never been responsible for this place, you can't expect me to leave this in your hands, and I'm surely not going to be responsible for doing all this work. You have no idea what's required, and I'm too old to do all this for you. And what if I let you do that, then I'd have to let all the grandkids come here whenever they wanted, and do you think that's a good idea? Can they handle any of this? Of course not. You should've asked me this 30 years ago, when I could come down here and supervise and do this for you, because I'm too old now to be chasing after you, but if you tried to come down here like that that's exactly what I'd be doing. How can you ask me to be responsible for all that preparation and fixing any problems that are going to come up, because you certainly don't know what you're doing down here. You can't possibly do this. Are you serious?..." Etc., etc., etc. By the way, I'm 30 this year. Been a full fledged grown up for a decade, but would not realistically have been able to ask her if I could bring friends out to the cottage 30 years ago. Not a point that I chose to debate this time around.

On Tuesday the group of us, my parents, my brother, Grandma and Pop and I, all went to dinner at a restaurant that my grandparents fancy. It's called The Fisherman's Inn and is a pretty basic, waterfront family establishment with a lot of fresh seafood on the menu, some surf-n-turf combos, a tropical aquarium in the lobby, a small bar area, and a deck overlooking a marina. The decor of choice happens to be walls and walls of antique, painted oyster plates. My grandmother seems to have developed a recent obsession with them, so perhaps that's why she fixated on eating there. My grandmother's other current obsession is smoking and the various plots to keep her from enjoying her favorite menthols. The Fisherman's Inn, like many restaurants these days, has enacted a complete ban on smoking in all the dining areas. The only smoking allowed is in the bar, which is made up of maybe 20 stools and two tiny booths, currently occupied.

Well, Grandma and Pop are not about to be told that they can't enjoy a puff before, during, or after their meal. They certainly aren't going to stand for such discrimination as being forced to get up from the table and go outside to smoke. So, we'll eat in the bar. We don't mind. The bartender explains that they don't have dinner service in the bar. The tables are far too small, there's no wait staff, and besides, what space there is is full. No, no, we'll wait for a booth. We need to smoke. The bartender understands that, but they don't do dinner in the bar area. It's just him on duty, and he has to stay in place and serve the drinks. And even if someone could bring you your food out here, they couldn't even fit the appetizer plates on the table, let alone dinner and salad and bread and drinks, and all the rest, let alone two extra chairs in a booth built for four. Well, what about this room over here, asks my grandfather. It's an empty banquet hall, with a long table set for about 40 guests and all the lights turned off. It's clearly awaiting a large event. Sir, that's not available at all. There's a party reserved there in about an hour. Then we'll wait for a booth in the bar. Oh for Pete's sake. I'm gonna get the manager to talk with you. Hang on....

So the manager assigns some waitress to be our personal server, the bartender practically chokes on his own bile rising up, and we squeeze into this booth so tightly that we have to put our silverware on our laps. The most frustrating part is that with all the embarrassment we probably ate better and faster than we ever would have if we just conceded the matter and went to another restaurant. So, no, my grandmother is right. I have no idea how to handle a difficult situation the way she would handle it. I do know to bring in the beach chairs to the garage, put the rowboat on the bank, and take everything off the porch if a storm is coming, but I can't get dinner for six in the smoking bar of The Fisherman's Inn. There is much we can learn from our elders.