Six Year Old Granddaughters Are Full of Surprises

I suppose most people have collections of some kind. My cousin, Momo’s oldest grandson, died a few years ago. But in the 1950s and 1960s he was wealthy and loved Corvettes. Each year he purchased a brand new model, drove it a few hundred miles, then parked it in a vast warehouse near his home in Banning. Occasionally he would drive his latest to Phoenix and take a wide-eyed girl for a ride she would never forget, once in a purple Stingray.

My grandmother, Momo, didn’t have space or dollars for such a collection, but she did amass a few pieces of this or that. She loved enamel, and so had a couple of small enamel trays, one of which has sat on our dresser for 37 years. She also had a few Indian baskets, and Aunt Betsy gave me one of them last year. It’s in our family room and greets me each morning as I come downstairs.

I collect a few things myself, but the ones that interest my grandchildren are my snow globes. I have a few dozen of them, some ornate and stately, others of the plastic variety often found in the “Five and Dime” stores of my childhood. From their earliest ages the girls have loved to hold them, shake them, and feel the smooth glass against their tiny hands.

A couple of years ago I decided to let them each pick one to keep on her birthday. I put a few of these “water globes”, as they are now called, away before I allowed the first pick. Either they were gifts, or had a great story. One I wish I had put aside, though, was the one I would have never expected anyone to choose.

This globe clearly began life as a kit, and was assembled by someone with as much artistic flair as, well, I have. The globe is graceful, shaped like an hourglass, but inside were placed a much-too-large plastic fern and a nearly-two-dimensional large plastic goldfish. It is really, really ugly, and it has a story.

Aunt Betsy found this gem at a thrift store and snapped it up for me. It was $1.99. We laughed heartily, and it joined the rest on the corner table.

Katie picked it, for her very first “Grammy snow globe.”

When I asked her why, she said, “Well, that’s easy. It reminds me of my fish that died.”

You can never out-reason a 6 year old, can you?