Family/Friend Friday --- Grandparent's Day

This is my grandma June. We just call her "Gran". This Sunday (September 7th) is Grandparent's Day, and I am so happy I have Gran for my grandma! She lived right across the street from us growing up. Since my mom cannot cook, I would go over there quite often for dinner...and every Saturday morning for pancakes or eggs and every Sunday for a big lunch after church (my favorite was always her chicken and stuffing). She also makes the best perogies in the world (which I am still waiting for Jen to make!).

One of my favorite memories happened about 10 years ago. For my birthday, she came with me and my mom to Atlantic City (she had never been to a casino before). Back then, the slot machines actually took real money...you'd throw in a quarter, and if you won, somewhere between 2 and 1,000 quarters would shoot back out (in today's casinos you buy "credit" on a little card you insert into the machine and at the end of the day you take your card to the cashier and they give you the money that you have left on it). Back then you could throw all your coins into big buckets they had laying around, take it to the cashier, and they would throw them into a money counter and give you bills.

So when we get there my grandma doesn't really want to gamble, but decides she will try her luck for a little bit on a nickel slot machine. So I leave her there and head over to the card tables and tell her I'll be back in an hour or so. After about an hour passes I start heading over to check on my grandma and I can see her in the distance throwing nickels in the machine as quick as possible and looking very annoyed. When I got there, her tray was overflowing with nickles (and these are HUGE trays!). I asked her what she was doing and she replied, "I trying to get rid of all these nickels, but they just keep coming back out...I don't want to carry all these home!!!"

She didn't realize she could cash them in. She is probably the first person in casino history that got mad every time she won. I helped her load up several buckets and take them to the cashier. She had over $200 in nickels (that's over 4,000 nickels!). I asked her how she won so many, and all she knew was she put in $5.00 and pulled the handle and they just kept coming out.

This was just one of many great times we've had together.