Summer at Grandma's House

When I was a child, I used to love to go to Grandma's house. Her house was out in the country in Osage County, Oklahoma in a little Indian community named Grey Horse. It is about 5 miles from a small town called Fairfax. Fairfax was a railroad town. The town seems to be dying now. Fairfax is about a two and a half hour drive from Oklahoma City where I grew up. There are so many wonderful memories for me in this part of Oklahoma.

I especially liked going there during the Indian powwow during the summer which usually occurred around early June. Grandma lived just right down the road from where they were held. Grandma was one-eighth Cherokee Indian. This is in the Osage Indian Territory. At night, I could sit on Grandma's front porch with my mom and listen to the dances. You could hear the drums, the other bells and chimes, and the voices of the Indians as they sang the songs. You could drive by or park to watch and see all the colorful costumes they wore. I was completely memorized by it.

One summer while I was there, my aunt and cousin came to visit at the same time. My aunt convinced my mom to let my cousin, who was 11 years older, take me to the dance and participate in it. You just had to have some Indian blood in you. Well, the locals knew my grandmother and I was allowed to participate. It was an awesome experience. I was about 5 or 6 years old at the time.

At night, I was afraid to go out alone. Either mom or dad would go out with me. We would sit on the porch to watch the lightning bugs, listen to the crickets, and gaze at the stars.

During the day, we would all gather on the porch to chat and we kids would play. I loved watching the tall grass in the pasture in front of her house sway in the wind. It looked like waves in the ocean. I would watch the birds fly around and land in various places. I was afraid of the wood bees Grandma had around her porch though. I was never convinced they would not harm me.

There was an old school building across the street from where Grandma lived. In the evenings, I enjoyed watching the chimney sweeps, birds, fly around and catch bugs and swoop back into the chimney of the old school building.

Horseshoes was a popular game to play around that area at that time. I spent some time playing that game with a lot of different family members.

My grandma liked cats. She had a momma calico cat that had kittens in her bedroom. My cousin and I thought it would be a great idea to take a dress from one of my dolls and put it on the cat so it could look like a real momma cat. We got the dress on the cat but then the cat freaked out a little. Momma came out to see what was going on, and I got into trouble for dressing up the cat. It was actually quite comical until I got a spanking. Momma made me take the dress off the cat. I put it on the cat. I had to figure out how to get it off. Once the cat realized I was trying to get the dress off of it, it pulled itself out of the dress. I never dressed another cat.



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