Gramma finds friends everywhere

My grandma can make a friend anywhere.

Claudia Moorman, “Gramma,” loves to chat. I spent a weekend with her recently on a trip to Virginia to celebrate a cousin’s engagement party.

A 12-hour drive isn’t exactly a fun car ride. But as I expected with Gramma, there was never a dull moment. We jumped from subject to subject, talking about our friends, family, work, religion and — much to my chagrin — politics. And while I was rocking less than four hours of sleep from the night before, I enjoyed our conversations. It’s been years since I last spent that much time with Gramma. Now that her grandchildren are all grown, she’s been traveling more with my grandpa.

Gramma’s never met a stranger. She’s the type of person who strikes up a conversation with the person sitting next to her on an airplane. (But only if the passenger expresses an interest to talk — she understands not everyone wants to spend their flight gabbing away.) During our drive, she recalled a man who was on his way home after meeting his mother for the first time — a pivotal moment for a stranger that my Gramma never would have known about if she hadn’t given more than a simple “hello.” 

She’ll never identify as such, but being able to eek a story out of a stranger like that is the sign of a journalist. Maybe she’s where I get my curiosity from.

Throughout our trip, Gramma continued being her bubbly self.

After spending the night in a hotel, I headed down to the lobby Saturday morning to grab a bite to eat before we left. A few minutes later, I heard a familiar voice echoing off the walls. Gramma appeared around the corner with a taller, younger gentleman, who gave her a smile and parted ways.

We visited a nail salon before the party. At 79 years old, Gramma had never gotten a pedicure until then. I’m sure most of the people in that salon knew that fact by the time we were done there. Gramma chatted away with her nail stylist and the woman seated next to her, learning about their families, hobbies and other idiosyncrasies. While I had my nails painted, the girl seated next to me pointed to Gramma across the salon.

“She’s funny,” she said, not realizing we came in together.

“That’s my grandma,” I responded.

Although our family loves to tease Gramma for her gift of gab, maybe we could learn a thing or two from her social lifestyle.

Halfway through our drive to the “birthplace of a nation,” I took over the wheel. We lost cell reception somewhere in the mountains of West Virginia near the Virginia state line. Of course, at that time we were also getting low on gasoline. Fears plagued our minds of the car stopping near shacks in the middle of nowhere and thrusting us into the plot of a horror movie.

About 15 miles later, we found a quaint convenience store with gas pumps nestled along the road. Thank God.

I walked inside to use the restroom and grab a drink. As I waited to pay, my eyes honed in on a newspaper stand. Intrigued, I snagged a copy of West Virginia’s weekly “Hampshire Review” dated June 14. (The week’s front-page headlines included a high-speed chase, a judge’s suspension and a man charged with impersonating a firefighter.)

As I paid for my items, the words spilled out of me.

“I work for a newspaper in Indiana,” I explained to the cashier, who gave me a quick smile.

I thought it would be neat to compare with newspapers from other states, I continued. She nodded.

“How much does this copy cost?” I asked. No sooner were the words out of my mouth when I realized she’d already rang it up. “Oh. Never mind, I see now.”

To add insult to injury, she pointed to the $1.05 marked on the right-hand corner of the front page.

“Oh. Just like our newspaper,” I laughed nervously.

She didn’t laugh back.

Maybe I’ll leave the small talk while traveling to Gramma.