Tag: granddaughters

Thanksgiving is a time for visiting family in Maryland

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn Thanksgiving

We enjoy visiting my daughter and her family in Maryland at Thanksgiving even if arthritis in my ankles has gotten to the point where I have to use a wheelchair to get through Reagan airport in Washington. We rent a car there and drive to Rockville, MD for a great time.

My daughter Johanna is a planner. That means there’s plenty to do and see in addition to my granddaughters, Freya and Beatrice.

We enjoyed seeing the winter lights at nearby Gaithersburg and a production at the great old Weinberg theater in Frederick. The theater’s been around since 1926 and has, I think, the oldest theater organ in the country that’s still in its original location. I’d like to hear that old Wurlitzer sometime.

Johanna’s husband Kevin could give Chef Ramsay a run for this money. This means a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner.

The trip home was another matter. The storm system that has brought tornados to the southeast brought us a bumpy flight into Chattanooga and one hell of a rainy drive from there to our home in Rome, GA. Our cats were glad to see us after they got tired of being a bit spooky. (They hate thunder.)

It’s hard to keep up with my granddaughters from so far away. Thanksgiving helps us see them in their natural habitat. They are polite and well-behaved, a departure from some of the kids we saw on the trip up and back.

So now we are home. Exhausted, of course. But with good feelings for our kin.

—Malcolm

Home from the north country

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn family, writing2 Comments

My wife an I spent a wonderful Thanksgiving week with my daughter and her husband and my granddaughters in Maryland. We hadn’t seen the family in two years due to my cancer radiation treatments and the COVID pandemic. We spent a lot of time just hanging out at their house enjoying being together again. Johanna’s husband Kevin fixed the Thanksgiving dinner after which I told him that if he wants a new career path he can become a chef.

War Correspondents Memorial ArchMy daugher, who admits she is a planner, set up some great activities. I already posted about the pinball games in the grocery store. We visited a museum of civil war medicine, the war correspondents memorial arch at the Antietam Battlefield park, and enjoyed walking through the beautiful festival of lights at nearby Gaithersburg.

Both granddaughters (Freya and Beatrice) are enjoying their ballet. In fact, both of them are dancing in the Metropolitan Ballet Theater’s production of the “Nutcracker” and “The Nut Cracker Suite this past weekend and next weekend in Rockville, Maryland.

Both of them like puzzles, Bebe (Beatrice) likes morning “nature walks” with her mother, and Freya carries around a sketchbook which she focusses on with persistance and passion. Both of them smile a lot and play together in a way that makes me smile and try to remember what life was like when I was that young.

Fortunately, our flights up and back went smoothly and were on time. Standing in the TSA line, especially at Reagan airport in DC, was tiring, and tedious. Flying while wearing a mask, while no doubt necessary, was unpleasant. While we were gone, our three cats were  checked on daily by a neighbor friend just down the street. We’re both still tired from the trip. Not long after we got home, I fell asleep in the living room recliner and the cats all climbed aboard.

What a great Thanksgiving! The granddaughters grow and change to fast, we don’t like missing out on visits. Their parents grow and change, too, but I’ve been instructed not to take pictures of them. I may have accidentally taken a couple <g> but I’m not posting the evidence here. Lesa and I hope we can dream up some more great experiences for next year, hopefully with fewer pandemic mandates and other hassles, perhaps at a place without those low temps and cold winds.

—Malcolm

Here’s a sleigh full of gift ideas, all available in e-book, audiobook, paperback, and hard cover editions. Click on the graphic to buy the books from Amazon. You’ll also find them online at Barnes and Noble and other venues.

Do you know what it was like to be 13?

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn family

My oldest granddaughter is now 13.  A teenager. Beginning what is supposedly an angst-filled and uncertain time for humans.

I have no clue what it was like to be thirteen years old. My family sent out a Christmas letter. They’ve been collected into a notebook which I use whenever I want to know what I was doing at a certain age. Checking the records, I see I was a Star Scout, diligently working on merit badges. Once I read this in the Christmas letter archives, the memories come back and I remember the Scout meetings and the camping trips and family trip to a lake near Rhinelander, Wisconsin where we tried (without success) to catch Pike and Muskies.

I know my granddaughter’s primary focus is ballet lessons. She’s been in Girl Scouts. She likes the scariest rides at Disney World and other theme parks. Goodness knows I, as her grandfather, don’t know how to handle ballet lessons or perform on stage. So, no wisdom from me on being a teen.

Not that she’d ask.

She’s a vegan even though her sister and parents aren’t. My wife and I wonder where that came from; perhaps she heard about it from another kid at school and the approach to eating made sense.

I can’t help with that.

I know she can be very stubborn, very focused on what she wants to do. I can identify with that. Seriously, I was a horrible teenager mainly because I had no respect for authority and didn’t like being told what to do or what not to do.

My daughter won’t let me say anything about what I felt at thirteen. I don’t blame her. Yet, I worry, because being an outlier can be a lonely road. If we saw each other more often (she lives in MD and I live in GA), I could listen and hope listening is all she wanted.

So, she’s slowly turning into an adult, a time when parents are often skeptical about the value of too much contact with grandparents. My parents often thought my grandparents were a bad influence. That meant that I thought my grandparents were a good influence.

I was very independent as a teen. I think my granddaughter will be, too. I’m both happy and concerned about that. Her IQ will get her into trouble that I hope she’ll figure out how to get out of.

Grandpa’s sort of a rebel. Best that I don’t let her know.

—Malcolm

Malcolm R. Campbell is the author of the contemporary fantasy novel “The Sun Singer.”

Buying Christmas Gifts for My Granddaughters

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn Life

My granddaughters live in Maryland and my wife and I live in Georgia, so we need to order Christmas gifts early in November so there’s time for my wife to wrap them (my gift wrapping is a joke), box them up, and mail them. Fortunately, my daughter helps by sending a long list. We don’t see Feya and Beatrice as often as we wish (my cancer kept us from having a springtime visit this year), so we need a little help. We share the list with my sister in law after we check off what we’ve chosen.

On the wish list.

This year, Freya wants a book on learning Japanese and Beatrice wants a book on learning French. I had no luck learning either language, but far be it from me to say anything negative about the family gene pool when it comes to languages. Freya, who loves ballet, also loves to draw. Beatrice had a slew of books on her list. Okay, I’m happy to see this, so the gene pool isn’t entirely bankrupt.

The girls watch a lot of kids’ movies on Netflix. That and their interactions with other kids at school introduce them to fads and pastimes that I don’t know anything about. Looking at these gift ideas is an education. Manga and Anime drawing–I have no idea what that is even though I’ve been to Japan.

When we were at Disney World last year and had just left the Japanese pavilion (where I sampled the sake), I saw something cute and inadvertently said, “Kawaii!!!!!!.” My granddaughters whirled around. “How to do you know that, Grandpa?” “From watching you,” I said, though I believe they were sceptical.

My daughter and her husband have been giving their daughters a culture-rich life of museums and parks and plays. I highly approve. So, their wish lists for Christmas and birthdays don’t include guns and cherry bombs and acid rock music. Whew.

Since my book Widely Scattered Ghosts is dedicated to my granddaughters, I sent two, signed copies to my daughter a year ago. I said it’s too soon for either Freya or Beatrice to have a copy of this. But when the time is right, they can see them. It’s still too soon. But whenever the time is right, I hope they enjoy grandpa’s stories.

—Malcolm

Malcolm R. Campbell is the author of “Conjure Woman’s Cat.”

 

 

 

My granddaughters will have to wait a while for my ghost story book

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn books

My granddaughters are 11 and 6 years old, so I thought it would be cool to dedicate my new collection of stories (Widely Scattered Ghosts) to them so that when they are in their 50s they can take a copy to Antiques Road Show and learn that the book–at auction–is then worth $1000000000000.

This haunted Florida bridge is the setting for one of the stories.

They live in Maryland, so I’m going to mail the book. But I can’t address it to them because they love getting things in the mail, especially packages. But they’re way too young to read any of the stories. Even though none of the stories are the Stephen King variety, Freya and Beatrice will need to wait until they’re teenagers (I guess) before they get to see the book.

So, the mail is going to my daughter with instructions to hide the book and to remember where she hid it. My father was an author. I always thought it was neat to have copies of some of his books autographed for me. Maybe the girls will feel the same way even though I’m no James Patterson or John Grisham.

Four of the stories are about an inquisitive and highly intelligent teenager named Emily who talks to ghosts. She reminds me of my daughter (except for the talks-to-ghosts part). As a grandfather, I get to brag and say that I think my granddaughters will grow up to be smarter than Stephen Hawking.

That makes me wonder if they’ll correctly guess the endings to each of the stories before they get there.

—Malcolm