Grandma and the Red Light District

My grandmother and grandfather Montague lived for many years in this tiny little home down near the rail road tracks. Her mother lived next door for many years until her death. My Uncle Karl, who served his country in Vietnam and barely made it out, had been living with my grandparents since his arrival from the VA hospital.

Through the years my uncle had saved his money until he had enough to build a home. He built this home in a new district of town where new homes were being built and zoning was a requirement. Zoning meaning no trailer houses were permitted on any of the properties. Plus other zoning things, such as lawns had to be kept up, trash cans couldn't be left out for only so long. It was one of those, kind of neighborhoods. New and had rules as long as your arm to go with its newness. Of course those rules eventually went to the waist side as they say. Anyway once the house was built, my grandmother separated from my grandfather.

I don't know what really transpired, I could tell you a theory, but I won't. Let's just say it entailed many women. Mind you, my grandparents never divorced, just separated.

I know what you are saying if they were separated why didn't they just divorce? I always said it because of my grandma's religious background and frankly people her age weren't getting divorces like they do now.

Even though they were separated, he came to the house every Sunday for dinner as well as everyday for lunch and dinner. By night fall he would be back home away from her. Like I said, for a kid it was weird.

Anyway, many Christmases were spent in the new house on Apache Drive and my grandpa without fail always was around despite him being separated from grandma.

If I can recall the year, I was barely married when this incident occurred and nearly everyday I went to see my grandma and Uncle Karl. Now since my grandma had moved in the house with my Uncle Karl, she had to have some Christmas decorations.

She had bought these two candle stick moulds that she bought at a garage sale and placed them at the end of the sidewalk and plugged them in.

These little jewels were a treat, considering she did no lawn decorating before. Every night at dusk she would put them out, unless it rained then they stayed in the house by the door. But other wise they went out every night at the end of the sidewalk. Then about eight o'clock at night she would unplug them and bring them back into the house. The reasoning was she feared someone would steal them, which in my town could have been possible.

Anyway, she did this for many years but this particular year she wanted to bump up her decorating. When my grandma said she was going to bump up her decorating for Christmas, I figured she was going to buy more decorations to add to those nasty silk balls she had that had seen better days and that the homemade ornaments that had fallen apart would retire. No such luck.

Well, my grandma was in a festive spirit that year. She splurged a little more than usual on Christmas gifts and she did buy some more ornaments for the tree. But kept the same tree topper I made her when I was in second grade, a paper angel that had glitter on it.

One day I came by and she had the house all decorated up. The mantel was decorated with gold garland and little plastic Santa Clauses. The television stand had green garland on it. She had something that had been given to her, sitting on the top of the television that vaguely resembled a miniature tree. This year, even the bathrooms got festive as Santa Claus stood perched by the hand soap.

She was playing the radio which had some Christmas music, not much but some. She was busy sitting on the sofa working on her word puzzle. Not the cross word mind you, she did the jumble puzzle. It took her the better part of the morning to work on this little puzzle. Now in her defense it wasn't that she was dumb and took her a while to work the puzzle, but she worked off and on the puzzle, while she did her morning chores.

Anyway, I told grandma she was making the house look festive for the holiday season this year and my Uncle Karl blurted out a loud laugh. She didn't know what had gotten into him lately; he had been acting this way for sometime. She really thought he may have to go back to the VA's and see if his medications were too strong.

I didn't think much of it myself. My uncle would sometimes blurt out with laughter and the only reason was because he was thinking of something funny. I figured he was having one of his moments. My grandma on the other hand, thought if my uncle sneezed wrong there was a problem.

This particular time however she commented on how when grandpa came around, he too would laugh at certain times. She said she had checked to make sure nothing embarrassing was showing, meaning her dress caught in her underwear.

I had asked her did she ask them why they laughed and she said they didn't tell her why. They say nothing. She felt they were being pesky men and left it at that.

Well, the time had come for me and Jason to take her out to see the lights, by now grandpa had forgone the lights and my uncle was never really interested in them. But grandma was.

It so happened that night was really good, no moisture to speak of, so the roads were going to be great. My grandma quickly lugged the candle sticks one by one to the edge of the sidewalk and plugged them in. She plugged in the tree lights and marveled as it for a moment. Then my grandma got her coat, scarf and her famous black purse.

As we headed out the door she quickly noted she had to turn on the porch light. That's when my uncle and grandpa burst out laughing. I was beginning to think they both needed to go to the VA hospital.

When I walked out of the door, I was suddenly splashed with a bright red light coming from the porch light. Then I knew why my grandpa and uncle couldn't help but laugh when you mentioned Christmas much less turn on the lights.

Now for you young ones, that don't know this, there is one thing you can do with red lights at Christmas. You can put them on the lawn and your house. Nothing looks nicer than a house with nothing but red lights outlining your home. Some people change out clear accents lights that are in trees and flower beds to beautiful red, blue and green bulbs with it comes to the holiday season.

However, there is one cardinal rule we all follow, never, under any circumstance, do we put red light bulbs in our porch light. There is a reason for this. If you put a red light in the porch light you have just signaled yourself to be the local red light district and for you boys and girls who still don't get it; Grandma's house just became the local whore house.

Just the little red light in the porch light signals my grandma is open for business. Now I nearly fell over when I saw the reason why my uncle and grandpa laughed at her. And when they were laughing, I became embarrassed and grandma quickly pointed out, "See, they're laughing again. I wish I knew what was so funny."

I think Jason was about to die a thousand deaths himself when he saw the red porch light. He too was laughing. We finally told grandma why Uncle Karl and grandpa were laughing.

We kindly told her that the red light in a porch light meant the house was a lady of the night house. Well, viewing the Christmas lights in town had been abandoned. Quickly my grandma turned off the light and had the red light bulb quickly removed nearly burning her fingers in the process.

Jason told her she could do it in the morning and her response, "What if some comes in the middle of the night for an emergency and I turn that on. How embarrassing that will be. If it's a stranger and that light comes on they might get the wrong idea. I can only think what the Bunting's thinking or even the Landreth's (my in laws) across the street." Needless to say that light was going to be removed immediately.

The next day however that red light was replaced with a green light, of course grandma wanted to make sure that the green light had no ties to the ill fated community as they say. So instead of asking grandpa or one of us kids, she asked the poor young and unaware stock boy at the grocery store.

"Green light doesn't mean red light does it?" she asked him.

The young stock boy unaware of the situation looks at her confused and says. "I don' know. What do you mean, Mrs. Montague?"

Holding up the package with the green bulb grandma replied, "Green isn't stating that I am for sale sexually in my neighborhood or the town to be a matter of fact?"