RECORD STORE TALES #1209: The Wooden Spoon

Friday August 22 2025, we lay my Grandma to rest.  I have a big speech planned, but there are far too many Grandma stories to tell for just one speech.  For the purposes of public speaking, I left out certain stories, that I can certainly tell here!

My mom and my aunt tell me that Grandma was a strict parent.  As kids, we didn’t believe them.  Who, OUR Grandma?  Strict?  Impossible!  She was the sweetest, kindest lady imaginable!  She was always gentle with us and we couldn’t even imagine her being hard on kids.  My mom and aunt tell stories of hiding behind trees to escape her wrath, but I couldn’t picture that in a million years.

Once we we were very small, we were misbehaving at her house one afternoon.  At that point, Grandma threatened to hit us with the “wooden spoon”, a common threat to misbehaved kids in the old days.  So how did we react?

We laughed!

We didn’t believe she could hit us with the wooden spoon, and we were right.  Grandma never laid a finger on us.  It was a hollow threat and we could see right through.  My mom can’t remember if Grandma ever actually used the wooden spoon, but she certainly threatened to!  (I bet she never used it.)

She was the best grandma.  She was so great that we didn’t think she was capable of discipline, even though once upon a time, she was “strict”.

We’ll always miss her.