NONFICTION
Photo by Weebly.com

Oranges and Postcards
by Barbara Applegate

My brother David and I jumped out of bed as soon as we awoke and ran to the bedroom where our visiting grandmother was sleeping. We made sure she was awake and then we got under the warm covers and snuggled with her, one on each side. After a short period of snuggling, we all sat up and she would reach for her purse on the floor. Her purse was a soft and scarred, black leather bag, deep and capacious, with drawstrings to open and close. From the bag she would take out several oranges. Then, after rummaging a few more moments in the contents of the bag, she extracted her jackknife. Spreading newspapers over the top of the blankets, we watched her deeply veined and ribbed hands cut and peel the oranges. The smell was immediately sweet and enticing. As we ate our delicious segments, the sweet juice ran down our chins. Then came the best part of all: we began to tell nursery rhymes. One at a time the three of us would take turns, never repeating one that had been told before. It was a contest to see who would be able to say one more when the others had recited the last one they could think of. After the winner was acknowledged, we would lie in bed together for a while longer, comfortable and cozy, and then it would be time to get up and begin the day.
 
Our grandmother, whom we called Mother because that is what our mother and aunt called her, was a small, slender woman who lived in San Francisco and periodically came to visit us in the mountains. Her face was soft and lined and her eyes were blue and there was a ring of white just inside the edge of her blue irises. She had thin lips and a receding chin. She wore cotton floral dresses that often buttoned down the front. Usually her stockings, unfastened from the elastic garters that held them up, would be bunched around her ankles. She wore soft slippers on her feet.                                                                                
Mother’s hair fascinated me. White and soft, she wore it shoulder length and in a black snood. Every night before going to bed, she would put her hair up in pin curls. These were not ordinary pin curls. She would take a small strand of hair and twist it tightly until it would begin to curl up on itself. When it was as tight as she could get it, she would stick a hairpin in it to secure it to her scalp. When all her hair was twisted and fastened up in the little bobbles, she would put a hairnet over it all and then she was almost ready for bed.
 
The final ritual was to pat her face with the cream that she made herself for her face and hands. Made from such homey ingredients as shortening and various oils, she would tell us that this cream kept her complexion and hands soft. And one way you could always tell a lady was by her soft hands, she assured us, as she pulled white cotton gloves over her own small, glistening hands.
 
It must have been hard on Mother to come and visit us. It was an eight to ten hour ride on the Greyhound bus from San Francisco and we would drive two hours to pick her up at the bus station in Yreka and then two hours back to our home in a small town on the Klamath River. She lived alone in San Francisco, but we were four young children, my parents, a dog, a bird, and various cats in a small house. She and my father had a tumultuous relationship and he would tease her unmercifully. When she had had enough of his insults to the Irish, she would toss her head and turn her back on him.
 
With us children, she was quite demanding, often telling us what to do and how to do it. Except for our early morning nursery rhyme ritual, I do not remember her as affectionate or gentle, although she did love to comb my little sister’s curly hair. As for me, she would often shake her head in despair after grabbing my hand and looking at my fingernails. It wasn’t that they were dirty; it was because they were flat. Every time we sat next to each other, she would grab one of my hands, look at my nails, and then, rolling her eyes, start squeezing the tips of my fingers, hoping to force my nails to become rounded and narrow, like those of a refined lady.
 
Although I knew we children were important to my grandmother, I also knew that she really came to see and be with my mother, her younger daughter who, at age 22, had chosen to leave her sheltered home in Berkeley and accept a teaching position in a far away, isolated mountain town. I knew my grandmother loved her deeply, not because my grandmother was openly affectionate, not because she made the long, harrowing journey from her home to ours, but because every day of my childhood my mother received a postcard in the mail written to her by her mother.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Barbara Applegate is a retired administrator of Early Childhood Education, mother of three daughters, a traveler and contemplative. She enjoys writing but finds it challenging to write consistently. She loves taking writing classes—not just because she learns from them, but because they give her structure for writing.
Vertical Divider
    WE WELCOME COMMENTS
Return to Table of Contents
​Vistas & Byways Review is the semiannual journal of fiction, nonfiction and poetry by members of Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) at San Francisco State University​.
Vertical Divider
Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at San Francisco State University​ (OLLI at SF State) provides communal and material support to the Vistas & Byways  volunteer staff.