Tea with my nanny

and pickles and spam

We sat at the kitchen table, the two of us. We had spent plenty of time there before. Highlights have always been the preserves - pickles, mustard pickles, chow-chow, pickled beats. My nanny always had pickles.

I’m almost ninety two years old ya know.

Oh, I knew. Less than six weeks away and she’d be ninety two. Born during the depression, she never had much.

When I grew up the doctor was almost an hour away by car - if there was one. And to call him, you had to use one of the two telephones in the community.

Healthcare was pretty brutal, almost non existent based on the stories she’d share about the nasty nurse waiting to give my Nanny’s mom pain killers as she died. No matter how much my great grandmother screamed and wailed the officious nurse didn’t dole out a bit of relief until the second it was permitted. I have so many reasons for hating the officious rule following humans, this is but one.

There wasn’t a store. You couldn’t just drive to the store for stuff. You had to make it y…