Two weeks ago, I wrote a column about my Granddaddy Pete teaching me how to roll my own cigarettes.

That was just one of so many true stories I can tell you about my grandparents in Naylor, Georgia.  Having gotten some replies saying they enjoyed the last one I wrote, I decided to tell you more stuff about these two funny people in my life.

Granny Pete was a slightly built, bespeckled little lady who loved to bake  and cook and was very good at it.

She spoke her mind. When Granddaddy Pete “acted up” (as she put it), she knew how to put him in his place. For example, when he showed me how to roll my own cigarettes when I was just six years old, boy oh boy was she mad.

That seemed odd to me since she chewed tobacco and carried an empty juice can to spit in!  When I questioned her, she assured me it was my age she disapproved of, not how to roll.

No wonder children feel confused!

But there was one thing she was deathly afraid of, and that was storms. I mean, at the first roll of thunder or clap of lightning and that little lady was “out of sight.”

Where she went was under her queen size bed.  The thing was, the bed was against one wall and she rolled her body until she was smack against that wall and as far under there as she could get.

 I will never forget being there during one South Georgia storm. It was in the middle of the night and I always slept with Granny Pete.

My bed space was on the outside. This meant when she heard the storm overhead, she literally rolled right over my body, onto the wood floor and under the bed — all the way to the way to the wall.

I stuck my head off the bed and saw her curled up like a baby. It looked to me like she was trying to crawl THROUGH the wall and she stayed right there until it was over and the last sound of thunder rocked us.

Then she had to come out and back into bed. I begged her but she did not move. I needed help.

Quickly, I scampered out of bed and to Granddaddy Pete’s bedroom door.

“Granddaddy Pete, help me. Granny Pete is stuck under the bed and will not move. Please, come get her out”.

Grumbling and using a few words I had never heard, he hauled himself out of bed and, shuffling behind me, we made our way to Granny Pete.  However, instead of sweetly asking his wife to come on out, that the storm was over, he saw she still did not move.

Totally disgusted, my grandpa fell to his knees, crawled under that bed and with a yank on one of her legs, he disingaged her from the wall and safety of the dark. With relief that she lived through the storm, she, with a deep sigh, laid down on her side of the bed and was asleep way before I was.

As I laid there, all I could think of was I hoped my visits in Naylor, Georgia, would be over before another storm passed over their house, the one with the tin roof. By the way, did you know that heavy rain pounding a tin roof is enough to scare any older lady in South Georgia

The view from the mountain is wondrous.