Today, my Nanny Opal Gressett Terrell would have been 104. It’s been about 10 years since she’s been gone, and I miss her. When I was growing up, one of the things I remember (besides her great cooking) is listening to Jerry Clower on her big console stereo or any of the many country and western albums she had. She loved cowboy music and cowboy movies, and any time I hear those fiddles play, I think of her.
But I don’t just think about cowboy songs or her cooking when I think of her. She was funny and sweet, and always willing to listen to the weird stories her grandkids told. She was annoyed that her hair stayed pretty much salt-and-pepper her entire later life (she wished it was just all white). She loved telling the story about the drunk hogs in the yard her daddy happened upon when visiting her and Grandpa. (Grandpa was fermenting muscadines in a bucket for homemade wine, but she didn’t know that, and put it in the trough for the hogs. Hilarity ensued.)
She loved to sew and crochet, and pretty much everyone in Dayton had been the recipient at one time or another of some of her potholders, pincushions, quilts or other projects. She pieced together many a quilt, and most members of the family still have at least one of them on a bed or in a linen closet. And, boy, could she bake, and this time of year we’d really luck out because her birthday and Mama’s were just two days apart (Mama’s is Tuesday).
I was lucky to have her in my life for so long and to grow up with her within a mile or two of us. With her and Grandpa around, I got to see every day what love truly is, even when they argued (which was nearly always funny to us kids). They are both missed.
Serenity is a fuzzy belly 
Nice memories, which brought up some of my own. My grammy Towle was a true Vermonter, who had lost three or four fingers working in the local lumber mill, and they finally assigned her to the gift shop. I made a surprise visit early in the morning of her 50th anniversary, only to find her stretched out by the floor by the stove. As I panicked, she sat up and explained that her boss had said “Molly, it’s your fiftieth anniversary; take the day off.” Since she couldn’t go to work, she figured she could at least fix the hot water heater.
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Ha! I would have loved to meet her.
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When she was telling a friend about my going to Harvard, the friend expressed some concern and asked, “What’s his religion?” “Hard work,” grammy replied.
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My grandfather, George William Gray II, loved to dance and was a fan of Wills and the Playboys. Whenever Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys were performing in Oklahoma City, Grandpa Gray would be there to dance to their music. When he learned that I wasn’t named after him as he wanted me to be, at first he was not happy with my parents but Grandpa Gray got over it eventually. I was supposed to be George William Gray Number Four originally.
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Bob Wills always made me happy. You granddad sounds like a real character!
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Yes my grandfather was a real character. Although he was a devout Baptist, he loved to dance and drink alcoholic beverages. Also, since my grandmother was too weak and too sick to dance, when my grandfather went to the dance hall, he had to dance with other women. Giving birth to two children did something to my grandmother which made her so weak she couldn’t get out of bed without a lot of help.
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My grandfather was one of the few people in Oklahoma who always had a steady job and was never out of work or unemployed during the Great Depression of the 1930’s. He was a lineman and repairman for the telephone company and almost everyone in Oklahoma had a telephone by 1930. The pay wasn’t very good and it was hard, dirty, and dangerous work but it was a steady job.
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Thanks to my grandfather and my father, I learned to love and appreciate the music of Wills and the Playboys at an early age. Since then, I have had opportunities to play some of their songs with my friends.
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