A few days ago a friend commented that as she gets older, she gets less sentimental. Can't say I'm the same. I think I'm more sentimental now than I was a few years ago. My Nana's birthday was a few days ago; it's hard to believe she's been gone now for 9 years. I've been wearing her ring nonstop for the last few months. As though somehow it keeps her closer to me.
Nana was a character. She was a cleaning fiend. Mess was simply not tolerated. She kept her house so clean you could have eaten off the floors. Including the garage floors. Yup, she mopped them the same as the house floors. After all, the garage was attached so any dirt on the garage floor was going to be tracked into her kitchen and that was just not acceptable.
Nana lost her mother when she was just a child. She became responsible for helping take care of the family at a very young age. But it wasn't all bad for her. Her family had incredible muscial talent. Saturday nights the family would get together for a jam session. They had all the instruments covered. I'm told she played the bass fiddle when she was little. They all played "by ear." After her family was full grown she took piano lessons for herself because she always wanted to learn to read music. She could play piano and organ like nobody's. business!
"Hold That Tiger" was one of my favorites to hear her play. I guess she'd been playing that one since she was a kid. My best memories of her are from the big holiday gatherings where people would call out songs and she'd play them. They were all "old" songs by the time I came along but I loved them. The story goes that she was convinced to play at a family gathering. So she played several songs until one of my little cousins looked at her and said "Play Wheels and then stop!"
So I leave you with the Peter Posa playing Wheels. Not quite the same as hearing Nana play it on organ but it's a great piece of music either way.
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