Grammie Smart passed away last night. She was a large presence in my life.
When I was 16, she took me to England. I remember a fancy show at the west end, river trips through locks, exploring Tintagel and Stonehenge and especially Mousehole. This is a quiant fishing village just around the bay from Plymouth. Small twisty streets leading down to a tightly enclosed harbor consisting of two walls with a small entry for the fishing fleet. We changed our plans and stayed there for a couple of days, we liked it so much.
On the way back we me my grandfather in New York. He took me to the US Senate, where I remember seeing Ted Kennedy. I amm thankful that they took me to the top of the World Trade Center on that trip. There was a booth where you could get your picture taken and it would be printed onto a t shirt right there. They got me one.
Grammie gave me and Shari some Chinese communist hats when we stopped at her place on our 1986 cross country trip. She taught us dominoes, and we ended up playing it quite a bit.
Grammie Smart was a hard core Texan southerner. She never lost her Dallas twang. She told me that our ancestor fought in the Civil War. When I asked which side they fought for, she snorted, "The South, of course!" However, I remember when Bill Clinton came on the TV before he was elected president, and she said, "I could never vote for a man whose eyes are so close together."
She loved USC. She was a professor of education there. All my Christmas gifts growing up were USC socks, shirts, sweaters, hats, etc. She took me to several of their big football games back in the seventies. Red and gold, red and gold.
She spent most of the last year in a state of dementia. Perhaps it's for the best as far as USC goes; she never learned that her great grandson Jack didn't apply to be a Trojan.
Grammie was hard to please. No matter how often I visited her, it was never enough. She was intelligent, extremely well-travelled, and was not shy with her opinions.
She would have turned 92 next month. Though the last year was very rough for her, the other 90 were quite good. I'm glad to have her good genes.
The last time I saw her was in October 2006, when I took this picture of her. I sang some songs on the ukulele for her, and she was more relaxed and less opinionated, her mind suspending her memories in favor of being in the moment.
She was one of a kind. She left her mark on me, deep and strong. I'll miss her.
Jim
