GRANDMOTHERS DON'T WEAR APRONS ANYMORE

Today is Grandparents Day. Did anyone notice? I doubt it, although I think grandparents have a role to play, holding the family together, sticking fast to time-tested morals. Perhaps I should say "should have a role to play" since times, they are a'changin'.

When young folks today commit an indiscretion, they are more prone to conceal it from their grandparents than their parents. I don't know whether this is out of compassion for the older folks, raised in a different culture, or because the parents, being closer to them in time, have committed the same indiscretions and the kids know about it.

Grandparents have undergone a quantum leap change in the latter part of this century. They live longer, know more, keep up social contacts, have lobbyists in Congress, and are a political force to command attention.

They, maybe, can't talk as glibly as the younger folks, but, perhaps, they can say more in fewer words -- understandable words.

No longer do we have many "over-the-river-and-through-the-woods" type of grandmothers, with string tied, voluminous aprons and little buns of white hair at the top of their heads. It's another bit of Americana that has been lost, if humans can be called Americana.

Grandmothers may still be better cooks. That's because they've been at it so long they know how big a pinch of salt is and how to scoop up, the first time, a piece of shortening about the size of a walnut as the old recipes guided.

To preserve their reputations as good cooks they may sometimes sneak in real butter, real lard, real mayonnaise and cream. However, their children and grandchildren are becoming so super cholesterol conscious, their taste buds detect it and they may exclaim, upon tasting a salad, "Oh, yummy, real mayonnaise!"

I have a friend, when offered a little piece of hard candy, put it into her mouth and took it right out again. When asked why, she said, "It has butter in it." She has such a beautiful, slim figure.

I deem myself fortunate for having been reared in a home wherein my paternal grandparents, my parents and my sisters and I lived. I can't remember any kind of conflict. We were sort of a rural self sufficient organization, dependent upon each other.

Each had his or her part to uphold and when he or she did not do it there appeared "a hole in the fabric," "a semi-meltdown of operations," "a loosened screw," "an overtime demand on someone else."

This three generation arrangement is not palatable today. Every unit wants to be alone. As soon as the children can make enough money to afford an apartment, they go. Sometimes the money for the apartment is furnished so that they can go!

Sometimes grandparents are prone to becoming boring to grandchildren by holding forth, verbally, on what happened way back then. The grandchildren don't much care what happened way back then when there are so many current details to attend to. It is better for grandparents and parents, too, if they wish to express their wordy ramblings, to keep a journal so that when the time comes that the grandchildren are interested, they will not have to say, "Oh, I wish I'd asked grandmother or grandfather more about their early lives." There it will be for them to read.

I'm speaking from experience. My grandparents, from Virginia, were young children at the end of the Civil War and lived through the Reconstruction days. Did I ever have sense enough to ask them about their lives during the time when they were right at hand? No.

How exciting it would have been, later, for me to open some old, yellowed diary and find, in childish handwriting, something like this: April 15, 1865. "Mama woke Sarah and me up early this morning to tell us that President Lincoln had been shot last night." Or, later on, April 20, 1867. "Some folks called carpetbaggers came by yesterday and Daddy made Mama, Sarah and me go out to the summer kitchen while he talked with them out in the yard."

So, since I didn't ask Grandma anything about these events or didn't listen if and when she talked about them, and since she didn't write anything in a journal, I'm taking the aforementioned recommended route.

I have such entries in a journal, made in what I hope will be long lasting ink, as: Dec. 31, 1935. The sun set beautifully behind the old church today. It made the sky all gold and rosy and set the window panes afire. The sturdy oaks hard by looked cold and lonesome in their mid-winter nakedness. Feb. 2, 1962. I sat on the green couch before the television, all alone, and watched John Glenn take off, the first American to orbit the earth. Cried -- for joy, of course. Cried and prayed and cried and prayed and finally rejoiced at the end. Sept. 22, 1978. Hastened to Sikeston to see my first born grandchild, Lauren. Little red, wrinkled bit of humanity, destined to become Miss America, I'm sure. Aug. 22, 1993. First big, handsome, yellow blossom on pumpkin vine opened this morning. I know it is late in the season, but my idea of raising my own autumn pumpkin came late.

REJOICE!