Growing Up With Grandma: Moving To The Ranch

By Bj Gold

This chapter book gives the young reader a sense of what it was like to live in the 1950's, first in the suburbs and then on a ranch. As the first book in this series, the reader will meet Sis's parents, grandparents, her older brother, and finally her newborn baby brother. Sis experiences a range of "growing up" experiences and emotions, all within the loving circle of her family.
With a caring heart to guide her, Sis finds it all too easy to displease her parents with her adventures. She is quite aware that she often gets herself into trouble, but she continues to logically determine what she can do, with almost always disastrous results.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bj Gold
• Release date: Jan 20, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301014576

Bj Gold

Bj Gold is a retired therapist, who was graced with playing with kids as a paying job. Having grown up on a ranch in Northern California, Bj is now at home on the Pacific ocean in Washington. Writing, reading, and keeping up with Layla (Chief Inspector Layla) in the dunes keeps Bj busy these days. More about Layla on Bj's website.

Book preview

Growing Up with Grandma

Book 1

The Move to the Ranch

by

Bj Gold

Copyright 2013 by Bj Gold

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Dedication

For Eric

My Brooklyn native who is intrigued

Table of Contents:

Chapter One: Trouble

Chapter Two: Daddy's New Trailer

Chapter Three: Dropping the Bomb

Chapter Four: Moving In

Chapter Five: Rex

Chapter Six: Swimming Lesson

Chapter Seven: Riding With Grandpa

Chapter Eight: Stew and Monkey Blood

Dear Reader,

Last year I used one of Grandma's stories for a biographical interview report for my seventh grade history class. I got an A. I also got a lot of questions from the other kids about my Grandma. My teacher suggested that I write more of Grandma's stories. My Mom agreed with my teacher. She said she would help me, but I had to do most of the work. So, I've put the stories in order of Grandma's life. This first book has stories that start when my Grandma was five years old and moved from the city to The Ranch. This was probably one of the most special events in Grandma's life.

Because my Grandma is kind of a private person, I've changed her name and her family's name. But The Ranch and her stories are as close as I can get to what she told me.

When you read these stories, pretend that you are sitting at Grandma's kitchen table, eating homemade chocolate chip cookies that you just dipped in milk. Grandma doesn't mind if the milk runs down your chin.

Remember, my Grandma is the little girl Sis in these stories. I hope you come to love my Grandma, almost as much as I do.

Sincerely,

S.I.S.

Introduction

My Grandmother was a Baby Boomer. When the soldiers came home from fighting World War Two, they got married and started families. With lots of babies. So when Grandma was born in 1948, she automatically became what we now call a baby boomer.

In the 1950's, a lot of people moved from farms and cities to a new place called a suburb. Rather than walk the path to the barn, these new, almost city people, got to commute to work. But Grandma's Daddy decided to move OUT of the suburbs, to live on a ranch. While other families were enjoying the first black and white television shows, Grandma played card games and board games with her Mama and Daddy and older brother, James. As most Americans learned to bake a cake from a box, eating store brought bread (it actually came sliced), and received home deliveries of bottled milk, Grandma learned how to grind grain, milk a cow, gather eggs and roll bales of hay.

Starting at age five, Grandma learned how to make homemade cottage cheese, butcher a steer, and squirt milk from a cow's teat to squarely hit a kitten in the face. When the town girls of her age were playing hopscotch on the sidewalk, Grandma was trapping squirrels (five cents per tail), and teaching her horse how to play rustlers (he had to stand still when she fell off of him and played dead on the ground).

Her family earned their cash money by selling eggs and cream. Grandma's first store bought dress was for Easter when she was ten years old. It was pink and she got new Sunday School shoes to go with it. As denim jeans with high top canvas basketball shoes became the uniform of boys all over America, Grandma wore peddle pushers and went barefoot all summer. No one knew about the problems with skin cancer from sunburns, so it was not unusual for Grandma and her brother to get third degree burns (blisters) on their face and shoulders every summer from working in the haying fields and not wearing hats or sunscreen.

When the Town Kids were watching American Bandstand with Dick Clark, James and Grandma liked to build forts and play cowboys and Indians. They used the loose hay in the barn to swing from a rope and pretend to be Tarzan and Jane.

All of this happened in a place that no one would guess still looks and feels today a lot like it was when Grandma lived there. A little speck of ranch land in a high mountain valley in Northern California. It still has a two lane road leading in and out of the valley. It still is the home to two towns with population signs that respectfully read 500 and 501.

Chapter One

Trouble

Mama, can I go to school with James? I asked.

No, Sis. You're not old enough to go to school, yet, said Mama.

Yes I can. I can walk as far as James, I said.

Mama smiled her soft smile. I just knew she was going to say something that I really didn't want to hear.

Yes, I know you can walk a long ways. But you can't go to school with James because you're too young.

There it was. I knew she was going to say something that would not be good thing for me to hear. I clapped my hands over my ears and shook my head.

That's enough, said Mama. She used her Mama's voice for that one.

I took my hands off of my ears and felt the tears coming. I hated being left at home when everyone else got to go to school.

Why don't you and I bake Daddy some cookies?

I shook my head, no.

"Would you like me to read