52 Ancestors Week 25: The Ancestor Who Stays With Me

 From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 25:

The theme for Week 25 is “The Ancestor Who Stays With Me.” Sometimes you find something about an ancestor, and their story lingers with you. They end up in a special place in your heart, even if you never met them. This week, share that person and why you feel so connected to them. (You could also take this prompt more literally and write about an ancestor who has lived with you.) Remember, there’s no wrong way to interpret the prompts!

And here comes the "Full House" theme

      Growing up it wasn't always just my parents, brother and I living under one roof. During the 1980s my aunt Linda and her dogs also lived in our house. If that sounds like the plot of a sitcom from that time period, I don't know what does. I know she wasn't an ancestor but a relative living with us is nothing new. However, one ancestor of mine did sort of live with us from time to time. She would stay with us over Christmas, Easter and basically any time. She was always welcome at our house any time of the year and though she lived in nearby Haverhill it definitely felt like she lived in our house. I am of course talking about my grandmother Olympia.

    Grandma Ollie started staying with us over Christmas after grandpa Marco passed away in 1983. Before his death they would visit us and take part in the festivities. Once he passed away, my parents invited Ollie to stay for Christmas and she would leave a few days after New Years. This was great for me because my birthday was in between those two holidays! I never really saw my other grandparents during my birthday except on special occasions and so having Ollie around was very special to me. Don't get me wrong. They still showed up for a few Christmas Eve parties! They just weren't around for my birthday. I still got a card from them. And twenty bucks.

    We'd pick Ollie up a few days before Christmas and she would sleep in the den at the top of the stairs. Unfortunately, that den was designated the toy and video game area when my brother and I were growing up. Many of our toys were in that room and since grandma was the most relaxed lady ever she never really minded being in that room. Of course she wanted to know about the toys. That's where things got interesting.

    During the 1980s, my brother and I played with a ton of the era's greatest toys. Almost every toyline was represented in the den. We had "Transformers", "Star Wars", "Go-Bots", "Thundercats", "Voltron", "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles", some "G.I. Joe", "M.A.S.K.",  "Centurions" and "Masters of the Universe" to name a few. I may have skipped a couple lines. Give me a break. I haven't had time to catalog every toy we've had. Needless to say we were no stranger to the toys of the '80s and '90s. Being a kid, I did my best to explain the toys to my grandmother. She just listened and smiled. I think she just liked the fact that my brother and I were so creative with the toys. Our parents liked giving us toys that had some creative aspect. Hence why most of that list involved sentient transforming robots and aliens from far, far away. Our parents didn't like toys that glorified war. They liked the fantasy elements more.

 

The cause of many jump scares.

   One Christmas morning she wanted me to play with a toy called "Snake Mountain". I had gone into her room just as she was waking up and we were talking about what I wanted for Christmas. I always wondered if she asked because she knew something my brother and I didn't know.  She was also looking at the toys and was a little curious about this playset in the corner of the room.  My brother was fast asleep in the room adjacent to the den and my parents were making breakfast downstairs. We had a rule. Breakfast first and then presents. Believe me the urge to just dive into the presents was great many Christmas mornings! 

    Anyway, "Snake Mountain" was a companion piece to "Castle Grayskull" from the Masters of the Universe line. It was a purple mountain that the bad guys all lived in. The playset had a number of features. Trap doors, weapons racks and more. Snake Mountain had a bonus feature. There was a microphone with a snake head attached to the "mountain" and you could use it to your heart's content.....as long as you had batteries. Those were sold separately! Gotta love the 1980s and mass consumerism.

    I knew full well that there were a set of fresh batteries in "Snake Mountain" and so I said into the microphone "WAKE UP, JIMMY!" A second later my mother called my name and about five seconds after that my brother comes into the den wondering what happened. Our grandmother at that moment was laughing her head off. I think she enjoyed the toy more than we did. We definitely got a lot of use out of it.  We didn't fight or anything. But we did torture each other with "Snake Mountain". Fair is fair. I do wonder if it still works. It's been forty years so the wiring may be a little shot.

I may have thought that was my
present.....

    My brother wasn't the only one woken up by my shenanigans that Christmas morning. My aunt Linda came out of her room wondering what was going on. My grandmother explained everything and we had a good laugh. Finally, we were called downstairs for breakfast.

    If it hasn't been made clear by now, I think I got my sense of humor from my grandma Ollie. She loved to laugh and she enjoyed playing with us. Grandpa Bob would often talk about a toy's alt mode if it transformed into a plane or a jet but it was Ollie who actually played with us and my brother and I always thought that was cool.

    I don't really remember what I got that Christmas. Knowing our parents it was more Masters of the Universe figures and that gave us more of a reason to use "Snake Mountain"'s microphone. My mother shook her head and my father just laughed. Hey. It was a playset and we were going to use all of its features no matter what! I think Ollie just liked the fact that we were enjoying ourselves more than anything. She DID ask about the toys and once we got a Sega Genesis in the den in the late 1980s, she asked about that, too! I don't think she ever quite followed "Sonic the Hedgehog". 

    Christmas wasn't the only time my grandmother came over and spent the week with us. She often came over when my parents had to go to a conference and watched us. My brother and I, naturally, were on our best behavior. I can see you rolling your eyes back there....especially in light of the "Snake Mountain" incident. I think we can all agree that it was Ollie's fault and not mine!

    Kidding. I'm not gonna throw Ollie under the bus. It was funny though and we talked about the incident for many years. 

    Grandma watched over us whenever she could and since she didn't live that far away it often felt like she stayed with us. We saw her and her sisters so often that I would tell her everything that happened and she gave me some good advice here and there. It was great having her around and she really was a lot of fun. I mean what other grandmother would actually play action figures with you or watch you play "Sonic the Hedgehog" and then cook some pasta and tell you stories?  I'm sure some grandmothers were like that too but she was special. She really was a great person and I was fortunate that we got to see her as often as we did.  Gotta admit, though. The "Snake Mountain" incident was GOLD. 

See ya next time!

P.S. My brother and I saw the new "Masters of the Universe" movie last week while he and his family were visiting and a lot of these memories came back to the surface. We did wonder if the old playsets still worked. You never know. ;)