I sent this to ChiChi for her memory book but I thought I'd share it with the rest of the family as well.

To Grandmother’s House We Go!
Sarah Garrison

As far back as I can remember, I can remember Granny. And much like the Grannies in the fairy tails she read to me as a child, the beginning of each of our stories usually starts with a long trip to her house. No, these trips did not begin on foot and wind over the river and through the woods. They were instead marked by long journeys, crammed in the back seat of my parents old Subaru Station Wagon with my brother and sister, watching the endless white dotted line of the highway roll by at sixty miles per hour. These trips were eternal as a child. They were hot, and terrible, and usually interspersed with attempts by my siblings to squish me between their two bodies so hard, my eyes would bulge out of my head. Somehow though, I always looked forward to these trips, and that was because I knew a visit to Granny’s house was at the end.

Granny’s was a magical place. All of the best toys were kept there—stacks of them on the bookshelves in her living room—the kind of toys my parents didn’t buy me because they knew I’d either break them or use them to clobber my sister. My favorite was the Jacob’s Ladder. It was simple really, a few wooden blocks woven together so when you turned one the rest went toppling over each other. For those of you lucky enough to have visited a Mexican toy shop, you’ll know what I’m talking about. For the others, chalk it up to the mystique of Granny.

She had other wonderful curiosities too—marionettes in top hats and bow ties that danced around like magicians when you pulled their strings, heavy antique cast iron piggy banks that did something marvelous and mechanical when you fed them a dime, Chinese Ben Wa balls that sounded like fairies when you rolled them in your hands, and an assortment of many other astonishing things I was usually distracted from by one of Granny’s delicious diabetic vanilla wafers. She kept these in a jar on the table in her eat-in kitchen, and at six I had no idea there was really no sugar in them. But they tasted like sugar and that was all that was important.

Once the grown-ups had started talking, I could always retreat to the basement. Today, I would probably find it excruciatingly dark and creepy, but in a child’s eyes it was fantastic. It had a great smell. Only Granny’s basement smelled like that. It was a smell like the inside of an antique shop or a guest room no one ever goes into. And it was full of toys! Looking back on it, this was probably a collection of old playthings accumulated over generations, but all I knew was this was stuff I didn’t have at home.

Aside from the giant organ which could be banged upon to my heart’s content (because it was never plugged in and consequently made no noise), there was a great heaping black leather trunk at the foot of the stairs. This, was always the best hiding spot because it was always completely empty, except for one small gold charm in the shape of a rotary telephone. In the corner of the basement was a giant foot-ball shaped toy chest, chalked full of all of the best novelties you would never buy your child today. There were real wooden Likin-Logs, and doll babies with one eye, solid metal Tonka trucks—the kind you could throw at your siblings if you really wanted it to hurt, and undoubtedly there would always be some toy I had forgotten to bring home on my last visit.

This is the kind of thing you could depend on Granny for. She was the keeper of toys. Toys of all people—children and grandchildren alike—and when you had gotten your fill there’d be a diabetic wafer waiting for you in the kitchen. Ah, to go back to those days—the days of cookie-breath and grass-stains and playing in Granny’s basement. All I can hope for now, is that one day I’ll too have a jar full of sugar-free cookies and cellar full of toys. Maybe I’ll even go out and buy a black leather trunk, just incase my grandchildren want to jump in.