A. Blinken

Granny Wise twisted her ankle getting firewood a couple of days ago and when I found out I went up to get her. Granny knows the proper care for a sprained ankle is to let it rest, keep it elevated, take NSAIDs, and get plenty of water, which is why I found her hammering boards on her barn. "You have two choices, Granny, either come down to our house for a few days, or unfold the guest mattress, I’m coming to stay." Granny screwed up her face, "your snoring and farting all night or the heebie-jeebies of being surrounded by strangers." "What strangers, you know everybody or their grandma." So, she came home with me. I was excited having Granny sleep over. She wouldn’t take our bed, so I put her on the sofa by the wood stove and turned on the television. Notable, well-paid talking heads were on the news. Granny huffed, "turn that off. You should be more careful who you let in your house." She continued watching, though. She has a little color television but she doesn’t get much signal. Ours is nice and clear. After a minute she said, "Does he have a tied tongue?" She meant, did he have a speech impediment. "No, he’s from Texas." "Oh," she said, "Is that why he says ‘terror’ like it had one syllable?" "I guess, so, Granny." I learned long ago I don’t have the stamina to argue politics with Granny Wise. "I think he’s just tryin’ to say it fast so you don’t think about it, like when a kid says, ‘I gottaeffonmyreportcard. I’m hungry, I love you Granny.’" "I only did that once." Yet another talking head filled the screen, this one had colorful decorations on his coat. Granny said, "see, he does it too. ‘Terrr.’" After a minute watching soldiers point machine guns at people she said, "that’s your puncture vine patch," and she rolled over "I’m goin’ home in the morning, A.B. Life has too few days to give one up to a gimpy ankle," and she went to sleep. She started snoring softly and I remembered the patch of puncture vine that grew in the gravel in the sunny spot at the edge of her yard. As a teen I stepped on it, decided it could maim a foot or flatten a tire; if I dug it out I could lay in the sunny patch. I got a grub hoe from the little barn and hacked at the puncture vine, scattering the flinty soil. Granny told me, "don’t do that, it will make it worse." Sure enough, in a few days lots of little puncture vines appeared and quickly grew. I dug out every living root including grass and whatnot, and I sprinkled grass seed over it. The next spring the puncture vine patch was twice as big. Granny told me, "put chicken crap on it." Dumb old lady, that would just make it grow. Instead I spent hot hours clearing a wide space along the driveway, creating a battle zone where I would strike with a hoe at the first sign of puncture vine life. Then, I got in trouble and was busy for awhile, and by then It was winter and I didn’t care. The next spring, vine covered every inch of the ground I’d cleared. I put chicken manure on it, and by fall it was all but crowded out by grass. On the television I saw men in armored SUVs with ready guns driving through streets where the kids didn’t have shoes and the houses flint. "Hack and hoe," I thought.