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closeguest column: A trail of charms and memories
Joan Cronk / guest columnist
My granddaughter, Grace, was with me a couple of days last week. Our plan was to do school shopping, maybe catch a movie, but when I heard about the Trail of Charms, I sensed adventure in the air.
We started out at the Puyallup Main Street Association where Janie Morris, Farmers’ Market manager, gave us charm bracelets with one charm on them, free of charge, and a pamphlet with explicit instructions on to how to fill our bracelets with charms for $1 each.
Grace was in charge of the pamphlet as we headed out to the Antique Store, where we picked up a cat charm. We had hoped for the flip-flop charm, but the Red Hat ladies swept through Puyallup the week before and cleaned them out.
Next stop was Meeker Mansion where we scored a covered wagon charm and that led to a long discussion about Ezra Meeker and just what the early pioneers went through to land in Puyallup as we walked to our next stop.
Our charm stash grew as we went to JC’s Music, Kristy’s, Dog Daze and A Simple Wish. Attaching them to the bracelet would have to wait, however, as we had school shopping to do.
In the dressing room as I helped Gracie, who is 7, try on all sorts of flippy, fun outfits, I remembered doing the same things with my kids.
We returned home, ordered a pizza and I attached the charms. As I did so, we remembered each stop and what we learned. Meeker Mansion gave us the most material and we chatted about Meeker Street and the statue of Ezra.
The next morning as we ate breakfast, we watched “The Music Man,” one of our favorite movies. We know all the lines and can sing most of the songs, and when the last scene came on where the magic of Hollywood changes the dowdy band uniforms into snappy, bright red ones, we leapt to our feet and marched right along Robert Preston and the 76 trombones.
A few days after Gracie went home to Seattle, her two cousins came to stay for a couple of days. Jack is 5 and Emmie is 2, so we did the park with a friend and her grandson, ate lunch out and they rode their bikes.
After dinner I washed the day’s dirt off the kids in the tub and remembered doing the same thing with their mom and her brother, Gracie’s dad, 35 years earlier.
My oldest grandson, Ryan, is now 19 and has moved away from home for the first time this year to attend college. I remember when he was 4 years old and I popped a cassette tape in to record him singing “Beauty and the Beast” in his tiny, little voice. Time passes quickly. I’m glad I had the time this week to do the Trail of Charms, and to make more memories.