The Golden Girls & golden memories

This was a popular sitcom in the 80's and tonight on a break from writing a paper discovered it on the Hallmark channel. This show is very funny and the couple summer I got to spend with my Grandma Margie in PA we would stay up late and watch it. Honestly a lot of the humor went over my head, but spacey Rose from St. Olaf and the matriarch Sophia Patrillo were always great for a laugh. The premise is basically 4 women Blanche the owner of the home (and thinks herself something hot in her 50's) Rose, Sophia, and her daughter Dorthy (the conscience of the group) living together and learning how to live in the older part of their lives with humor an most of all friendship.

This blog isn't really so much about the show as much as it is the ramblings of a night owl sharing a memory of her grandma. Usually afterward, if we were still up, we would take a walk or sit on the porch in the cool night air, the days humidity having finally subsided and enjoying a Klondike bar. Or there was always the chance of a 500 rummy game getting started and that would usually get played on for a while, each of us trying to anticipate the next move that we could make so that we didn't end up with any points in our hands. Could we make 3 of a kind or a run on another persons set? Or maybe we could stump the opponent by laying down our unwanted card on top of the one that they needed in the discard pile, forcing them to take more cards then they needed in the first place? Ohhh, the strategy.

The few summers that I got to go back there by myself were some of the funnest I remember. My cousins picking me up to go to the swimming pool. Pierogies at the Herritage Days festival and the 4th of July parade with candy getting tossed out of the cars from the Lions club. Playing across the street with Alicia and in her pool. I loved the penny candy store across from the office that my grandma worked in and always found an excuse to get something there, mmm Slush Puppies! It was so much fun getting to ride my bike around town with Tara, and traveling up to the park, and just getting to have a kind of freedom that kids today just don't get to experience. I would also get to go to lunch at the Italian Club with my Grandma and my Aunt Martha. To this day I still don't know what kind of Italian dressing they used on their salad, but it was good. And even though I can't eat them anymore, I always loved a good hoagie (no a Subway sandwich is not a hoagie, hoagies are better).

There was one summer that I went there, I think it was the last one I had, but she signed me up for a VBS at one of the churches in town. I enjoyed it overall, but there was a poster that we were supposed to work on about one of the Psalms (I can't remember which one). But I do remember that I thought that I had heard the teacher wrong, and instead of Psalms thinking I heard the word songs. So when I wrote the verse down I was chided by some of the other kids in the class for writing the wrong reference. I was embarrassed so I never really made a big deal about my poster and wanted to hide. However, as irony would have it the word Psalm actually means song. Little would I know that it would take almost 18 years to learn that but God is good in that way.

Anyway, that was a total ramble and hopefully a break through in my writers block with my other paper. Onward to my real task now. But not before I jot down the song for the opening credits.

Golden Girls Theme Song

Thank you for being a friend,

traveled down the road and back again.

Your heart is true, your a pal and a confidant.

And if you threw a party,

invited everyone you knew.

You would see the biggest gift would be from me,

and the card attached would say

Thank you for being a friend.

Thanks to Sandi for the link. Those of you who are interested can hear the song by clicking on the link.