Granny and Her Flashlights

One night last week, I was awakened by the loudest thunder and brightest lightening storm I can remember. The thunder and lightening came almost simultaneously, and as learned at summer camp, that means it's  right on top of you (or close enough). Lying in bed, counting the frequency of lightening flashes per minute, I hear from my bunk mate, "You up, too?" 


I was glad my counting was interrupted because my heart was beginning to pound. I love a good storm, but this was a bit much. I was waiting for the Von Trapp's to jump on our bed:

When the dog bites...!

Then, we hear a "beep" (3 second pause) "beep" (3 second pause, so on and so forth). The house alarm was telling us that the power is out, and that it's going to do that beep until the electricity comes back on or until we do something about it. Josh decided to get up and check things out and I was ready to follow. That's when Aunt Pat and Granny come into play.


Aunt Pat has given us what I consider to be an heirloom collection of flashlights over last  several Christmases. The gift tradition started with a basic model and has morphed from baseball caps with mini lights shooting out the bill, to illuminating ear clips, to this latest and greatest hands-free version:

The above hands-free lighted frames were rather handy on this night as Josh attempted to hush the "beep" from our alarm.

On this same night, I had a mini epiphany. I realized what the inspiration behind all of Pat's flashlights gifts may be: GRANNY! I remember an assortment of flashlights sitting on Granny's bedside table. What I love is that she did not use them just when the power was out. Once it was dark out, she used them regularly to walk from say her bedroom to the kitchen, instead of turning the lights on. The one I remember most looked a lot like this:

I love when feel-good memories resurface. It got me reminiscing about more-things-Granny, including gardening shovels and birdseed stored in the back of her Bronco, pimento cheese sandwiches, Virginia Slims, Coca Cola, the Golden Girls (she identified most with Dorothy) and her collection of these:

They lined the floor of her closet.

This post may be of interest only to those who knew my grandmother, but maybe it's got the potential to spark some memories of your own.


And by the way, if you're interested in starting your own flashlight collection, there's some really cool vintage ones on Ebay. One is on its way to me:)