The Seven of Us

My memories of Nana are limited. I was barely eight when she died in December 1982. I'm pretty sure that most of the memories I have occurred after I was 4  or 5 years old. When I was five, we lived in her cabin on States Road in Stony Creek. I'm pretty sure she came to visit us a few times while we were there. My memories of the cabin are of watching her mix drinks (martinis, I think). I think she and Ed, her boyfriend, had drinks every night. I'm not sure if this was a tradition that she and Ed started together, but I do know that Nana and grandfather had a bar in their basement in Shrewsbury and that they liked to entertain friends there. Anyway, I remember her mixing the drinks and I especially remember the smell of the green olives that went in them. My parents have the icebox that she used as a counter for mixing them; she had the hinges on the top door changed so that the door opened downward instead of sideways, making a great little table. I also remember be...

This is my cousin, Andrew Droddy, with his mom, Suzanne.  I haven't Andrew (in person) since 1989. (Or Suzanne.) Funny how twenty-some years changes things.  Add caption

This is a photo of my dad's brother, Uncle Drew (Isaac Andrew Droddy).  He is 9 years younger than my dad and has always been much broader. Otherwise they'd be twins.  One of his daughters (he has 5, along with a son) posted this photo to commemorate his 55th birthday yesterday.  Oh, my Isaac isn't named after Uncle Drew.  He's named after Drew's grandfather, or my great-grandfather, Isaac Newton Clegg, Jr. (So I guess he's also named for Isaac Newton Clegg, Sr.  What a name to give a child!  [Isaac Newton, not Isaac. Isaac itself is good. It's the apple falling from a tree image that's not so appealing to me.  Haha!  a peel ing!)

Well, for starters, this is not the blog post I've been meaning to write for 3 days.  That was going to be an unpublished journal entry.   But since my parents are here, and since today my dad told a story about my grandfather which I hadn't ever heard, and since I never knew him (my grandfather) but have always loved him with all of my guts (and my heart), and since I've done his temple work and I know he has accepted the gospel, and since the story is fresh in my mind and I can't sleep anyway, well, for all of those reasons, this post needs to be written...now. I guess I should explain the title first.  If you're a southerner, or a Louisiana (Loos eee anna) person, you don't need an explanation. For the rest of you, it is this: Several years ago I started wondering what I'd call my grandfather (William Droddy) if he were alive.  I decided I'd think of him as "Grandfather Bill".  Then I realized that "grandfather" would be ...