Thursday, January 21, 2010

Strong Women

Airman Mom had a great little video/song posted at her blog thanking our soldiers for their service. The photos in the video were cool – if you get a chance to view them. One was a photo of two "Rosie the Riveters" working on a plane. It reminded me that my grandmother was a riveter back in her day. I’m not talking about the 5’11" grandmother whom I was named for. No, I’m talking the 5’2" grandmother whom I took after. Despite her small size, she was one strong woman and tough too. Of course, she had six brothers. My memories of her are of her working along side my grandfather at their gas station and taking care of us kids at the same time. I can just picture her working on planes – driving rivets into metal. My mom tells a story about traveling to Red River one summer with my grandmother along. Some way my mom had pulled over on the side of the road and gotten stuck. I guess my grandmother was pushing while my mom was behind the wheel. My dad was traveling in his old blue truck, and he blew by my mom as if he didn’t see her. My grandmother got so scared that he was leaving them on the side of the road, that she picked up/shoved the car back onto the road. I remember Dad telling that story and laughing, but my "Mama" was amazingly strong.

Monday when we were working on the decking, we had 4x8 sheets of ¾" plywood to drag and then pickup or shove into place. At one point Jesse was down on her hands and knees shoving on the ply-board, but it did not budge. She tried again to no avail. Thinking that the board must be hung up on some little nail or something, I bent over and shoved that baby into place. It was one of those "gee, Lou, not so hard" moments. Don’t get me wrong, Jesse is strong, but I am my grandmother’s granddaughter. I can still pound a softball in to center field, but I can barely get to first base. Toby teases me that he married me because I can carry my end of the couch. Last week while helping my sister and her friend move boxes of textbooks, her friend mentioned how strong my sister was and how she could move boxes of books all day. Yep, it runs in the family.

Mike, although we are very feminine, we do like physical labor, but we try not to let our real strength be known to others. For one thing, we don’t want to show up the men folk – fortunately I married well.

Airman Mom, you mentioned my pond in your comments. Jesse has some photos of the pond and the GGs on her blog, if you want to see more.

7 comments:

Buck said...

There's just something about strong women. I never really saw much in the shrinking violet types.

Mrs. Bear said...

Well, since eye surgery has overtaken my life I can no longer pick up anything that weighs more than 25lbs...the strong woman still lives inside of me and I try and find ways to cheat...like yesterday when I moved the mattress from out in the garage onto the daybed I now have in Blaine's room I slid it on a box so I didn't actually lift it...I can't help it sometimes...when something needs to be done it just it just needs to be done...When Brian got home I was in trouble... Oh well busted again.

John said...

"Toby teases me that he married me because I can carry my end of the couch."

Hey Lou...I don't believe that for one minute!! He married you cause you were the prettiest girl in RR back then. And you were good at something else...arguing!!! If I was ever in the mood for a good argument, I always went looking for you. :-)

Bag Blog said...

John, you are so sweet to say that about me, I think.

Anny, part of my strength comes from wrestling bears :)

Buck, us Suth'n women are strong in all sorts of ways, but shrinking violets we are not.

John said...

Don't think Lou...I meant what I said (about both attributes) :-) Take care and tell everyone hi.

Mike said...

Haha, feminine and physical labor sounds good to me...although I've never understood the inadequacy complex some guys get when it comes to females in their life doing "man" tasks. I mean, I like doing stuff like that, and I prefer to do it, mainly because I know I can do it better (:-p) but I'm not going to get all butthurt and feel like I was simultaneously castrated and slapped in the face by Charlton Heston just because a woman did some yard work or operated a power tool.

Bag Blog said...

Mike,
I learned a long time ago that men were stronger than women, but I am able to open a jar of pickles on my own.