I count my grandmother among my best friends, and for her 83rd birthday (Sunday), I made a semi*-secret trip to Arkansas to surprise her. She hadn’t been looking forward to turning another year older, and since my brother also lives at least a two-day drive away, thought that her only grandchildren present would be my sister and my niece. *Semi-, because she caught me in MSP on the phone. I generally call her every morning on my way to work and I had made the mistake of believing an airport quiet area was truly quiet.

So I called her at my regular time on Friday morning and when she heard the announcement in the background, she knew something was up.

I’ve always thought she missed her calling as a detective. She definitely has the mind for it; like a steel trap. After a barrage of questions, many of which were concern that I was in some kind of trouble, I admitted that I had been attempting to surprise her for her birthday. This was met with a “Well you little boogerbutt! I mighta had a heart attack if you’d shown up at my door!” in a tone of pure delight.

Nanny has been a constant throughout my entire life. She is a sweet person, with an underlying current of hot iron and a temper like a freight train. Throughout the family, the common knowledge is: “Don’t piss off Aunt Peg.” I’ve had her get mad at me exactly twice in my life and both times were that memorable. The first time was understandable, though I didn’t deserve her ire. The second time, I was lucky I got away without a well-deserved whipping.

Every morning that I talk to her, the phone call begins with a cheerful “Why, good morning, Julie!” and ends with a “Well, sugarfoot, I’m gonna get off here and let you get to work. You know I love ya!” Those phone calls are the highlight of my day, and I truly dread the day that they end.

Nanny never went to college and never finished high school. She got married to my grandfather at 16 and they worked themselves half to death to provide for the family they created. I consider her to be one of the smartest people I know, even smarter than me with my fancy-schmancy computer science degree.

Over the years, she’s cheerfully imparted her wisdom on everything from job hunting to gardening to quilting to furniture upholstery. She’s handy with re-doing furniture and making homemade canned goods. She taught me how to filet a catfish so clean it could be served in a restaurant, how to rig up a fishing pole, and how to rework a wood table. She showed me the best way to make white gravy and how to fancy-up a box cake mix.

She made sure I knew how to tell an antique from a fake and where all the best junkin’ places were in NEARK and SEMO. She taught me all the different flowers, how to make an apple pie, and how to effectively kill a snake with a garden hoe. [The key is to make sure your hoe is sharp enough to slice baloney!] She’s shown me how to exhibit the patience of saint (especially when you don’t have it naturally), even when dealing with someone who drives you nuts, and when it’s most effective to drop in a swear word to end an unpleasant conversation. She’s even given me advice on which trees to avoid planting in your yard and how best to shell pecans.

She’s a true-blue Republican, a happy Trump supporter, and she joined up with the NRA at the same time I did. She loves the fact that she can talk politics with me and get agreement, especially when some of her other close friends and family are Hillary-loving Democrats.

I make it a point to reserve at least one day with her every time I come back home to visit. We have a special little junk shop over in a town called Biggers-Reyno, run by Mr. Eddington. We go at least once just to see what new stuff he’s gotten in. He’s on a first-name basis with her, my mother, my sister, and myself. Thanks to her introducing us to that place, I’ve found a fair bit of furniture and what-not that I’ve packed home.

She used to do quite a few quilts and when she found out that I enjoyed quilting, she shared a box of 1930s newspaper clippings with me that she’d been saving up. I decided to make a sampler quilt with every color of the rainbow like she’d planned on doing originally. She told me she’s always loved colorful quilts and has given me a variety of ideas for quilts based on ones her mother had done.

Before I head back to Montana tomorrow, I’m going to get up and join her for breakfast. I’m so happy I got to be here for her birthday and I’m already looking forward to seeing her on my next trip home.