Come with me, Grandma
And other Stories
by
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On the Waterslide!
"Come with me, Grandma, hurry up!" Chuck ran ahead.
The guard at the top of the five-story-high waterslide looked me over as if to judge whether I might sue them for a heart attack.
"Bet you don’t have many grandmas here," I said with forced cheer.
He just shook his head.
Chuck pushed off with a mixture of fright and enthusiasm, managed a few curves, then spun around and landed backwards in the pool. He looked back up. "Come on, Grandma!"
So I went. As soon as I was in the winding trough (it’s called a flume), I remembered the luge races at the Olympics. People lying on their backs slide down a curving course on a bobsled. It occurred to me that, maybe, I’d have some control over the descent by shifting my weight. Whatever I did, it must have worked because even before I splashed in, I heard Chuck shout, "Grandma, you came down straight!" Was that a compliment?
"Let’s go again!" He ran ahead. Then he looked at me. "Grandma, why do you walk so slow?"
"I can’t go any faster."
"I can run. Why can’t you?"
"Ah, because I’m old."
He accepted that explanation.
Second time up, the guard didn’t consider me a liability any more.
Now Chuck wanted to race, so we went side by side. To everyone’s surprise, I won.
"Grandma, how come you got here first?"
"Because I’m heavier." That statement didn’t hurt his little ego.
After two more trips up and down, I busied myself with taking pictures of the slide, the trees, the lake and Chuck. That gave me a chance to catch my breath without being quizzed about my "infirmities."
We became more familiar with the flumes and went down with more speed, more skill and more laughter.
In the end, I had walked up those stairs 12 times and Chuck 15. I didn’t need to exercise on the Stairmaster that day.
We finished off the afternoon with some putt-putt golf and a few games in the arcade.
On the way home, Chuck said, "Next time when it’s Grandma-day, can we go on the slide again?"
"Sure." Why not forget about "acting your age" and whoop up with the kids?
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About the Book
These short stories were collected from the author’s local newspaper column and tell, with subtle humor, about her little adventures with her grandson from the time he was a toddler. As a physician, H. Binder has observed that many people stumble aimlessly through their Golden Years and she wants to cry out, "Hey, get off your duff and do something!" Her stories are about skiing, rafting, parasailing, days at the beach or bowling with her grandson, and they all imply: if this grandmother can go on a water slide, so can you. If you can walk, you can raft. Don’t know how to fish? Let the grandkid teach you. The stories show her love for life after sixty. Read them; then go and do the same!
About the Author
How would you like to leave behind family, friends, culture, and language and follow your fiancé of six years to a new world? Tough, right? The author did just that. Both she and her husband grew up and studied medicine in Austria, that little country between Germany and Italy (not the one with the kangaroos). After WWII, prospects for a successful career in medicine were so slim that they decided to try their luck in the United States. After a few years, they established and still maintain an office for the care of eye diseases. Having watched some patients for close to 30 years, H. Binder saw their change in life style after retirement, which led to the stories in this book.