Pick-a-Mix Memories

Brach's candies remind me of Bondy. And since I've been working my way through an entire bowl of the sticky, striped, tree-stamped peppermint taffy variety today, I thought I'd introduce you to her.

Bondy's full name was Vienna Joanna Tastula Oxford, but everyone called her Vee, and she signed official documents as Vienna T. Oxford.  Never the full Tastula unless forced to write it out.  She was born in 1908 in Ashtabula, Ohio, one of nine children of Finnish immigrants. I don't know how overt the anti-immigrant sentiment was when she was growing up, but she felt it deeply. She never overcame that sense of shame about her Finnish heritage.  Hence the T.

Once, I told her about a new girl in my school who was Finnish.  I had been excited to meet this girl since we had a common background.  Bondy asked, "How do you know she's Finnish?" "Because she told me," I answered. "Why would she do that?" she wondered, not rhetorically.

Nonetheless, Bondy still said "skål" when raising a drink -- usually a can of Old Milwaukee.  She also never overcame her Lutheran frugality.

The young Vienna skipped the 4th grade and snuck out on her older brother's bike when she wanted to see a double-feature at the cinema on Saturdays.  She attended the Women's College of Western Reserve University before its merger with Case.  There she studied library sciences and, upon graduation, earned highest marks on the state exam.  She applied for a librarian position at the Infantry School of Fort Benning, outside of Columbus, Georgia, and was hired by then-Lt. Col. George C. Marshall, assistant commandant of the post.  At age 20, she boarded a train from Ohio to Georgia, ready for a new life.

Clarence Edward Oxford (whom everyone called "Sleepy") was a traveling insurance salesman from Zebulon, Georgia, who called on the base as part of his territory.  When he laid eyes on the new librarian, the story goes, it was love at first sight.  Until the day she died, Vee referred to Sleepy as "the best thing in my life."  She loved him deeply, and the fact that he has such a WASPy name was icing on her cake.  She told us he was descended from the Mayflower Aldens, after whom she named her cat, Priscilla.

The Oxfords moved to Charlotte, North Carolina, where they had a son, Clarence Edward Oxford, Jr. ("Skip"), and then to Greenville, South Carolina, where they were surprised with a baby girl, Margaret Ann Oxford ("Peggy").  Vee was 40 when Peggy was born.  Sleepy was a Baptist, but they lived in a house with a Lutheran-red front door.

Skip's first child, born only 8 years after Peggy, christened Vee with the grandmother moniker "Bondy."  The rest of her grandchildren, myself included, never questioned the name, although it did earn some giggles during introductions at Grandparents' Day in elementary school.  Bondy suited her -- she was certainly no Granny.

It wasn't until her funeral that I learned some of my older cousins had had their first beer with Bondy.  My beverage experience with her was quite the opposite.  She forced me to consume a crystal goblet full of hot water from the kettle before bedtime "to help regulate bowel movements."  But even that disgusting routine didn't dampen the fun of spending the night with her.  Her condominium complex had a creek and a playground and lots of French-speaking children whose parents worked for Michelin.  We would pick up fried chicken from the grocery store across the street, where she let me pick out one generic soda (2 cans for $0.25) and a small helping of Brach's Pick-a-Mix candies (3 pieces for $0.05).  My favorite were the butter rum caramels.  We would watch the ultimate Saturday night lineup on TV: "Solid Gold," "Hee-Haw," "Love Boat," and "Fantasy Island."  She sat in a chipped, cream-colored rocking chair -- the same chair in which I nursed my daughters -- and I sat on the floor.  She taught me how to knit and told me one day she would take me on a cruise.  I dreamed of meeting Vicki, the captain's daughter, and Gopher, your yeoman purser.

Original Santa by my father-in-law.
Brach's candies in honor of Bondy.

Bondy had benign essential tremors, and her voice sounded like Katharine Hepburn's.  She knew one piano piece and played it every day to keep the shaking and the arthritis at bay.  She did the crossword puzzle in ink, as do I, and instructed me to marry a man who could cook, which I did. She loved golf and duplicate bridge.  Chocolate was her favorite fruit.

When she was older and suffering from mild dementia, Bondy saw people in the trees.  They were always watching her but generally weren't threatening.  My mom, Peggy, took her out to lunch every day.  She preferred the $0.99-cent menu at Wendy's and would often eat half of her soggy junior cheeseburger and wrap the other half up for my mom to take home to my brother.  (My brother never ate after other people.)  She didn't understand answering machines.  One day my mom came home, pressed the play button, and after the beep heard a long pause, followed by quiet, shaky, drawn-out "Daaaaaaaammmmmmmiiiiitttt."

Bondy waited until we all came by to say goodbye before she passed away on November 11, 2000.  She had planned to reach 100 but came up eight years short.

I think about Bondy, and my mom, whenever I pick up my father-in-law from his retirement community and take him out to lunch (or to the pharmacy or one of the countless -ologists we visit on a monthly basis).  Peggy had an octogenarian mother and kids under ten long before anyone coined the term "Sandwich generation."  She also had the patience of a saint, especially since by then it took Bondy almost an hour to eat that half cheeseburger (or two out of four chicken nuggets).

Even though Bondy's final decade was dominated by nursing homes, hospitals, and fast food, my strongest memories are those like the stories above.  It gives me hope that one day my children won't think of their grandfather, my father-in-law, as someone afflicted with chronic depression and Parkinsonism, but instead remember him as a quiet, smiling grandpa who taught them to draw at his drafting board, carved a Santa each year for Christmas, and gave them a butterscotch candy at the end of every visit.  Werther's, not Brach's, but the memories can be just as sweet.