PLAYING A CREATIVE GAME
Making Memories with Grandma
When I was about eight years old, I used to go to my grandmother’s apartment a lot after school because both my parents were working. My grandmother was really good with kids because she had a lot of imagination. She was an artist and had been an interior decorator for most of her life. So, it’s not surprising that we did something creative when we were together.
Our favorite game was “Let’s Start a Business.” Every week we’d think of another business to start. One week it was dog washing. Then the next week I wanted to show movies for everyone in her apartment building. Then she suggested a Busy Bee business (she really liked bees for some reason) and in this business we planned to do any little odd jobs people needed done.
After we named our business, she would create the signs for it. Then we’d make a plan about what we would do to get it started, where we would find customers and how much we would charge for our services. She had a big storage closet right outside of her apartment and she cleared it out so that I could have an office. I would work there and we would go back and forth between our “offices,” organizing our business of the week. We both had such fun. It’s one of my best memories of my grandmother.
—Samantha T., now age 16, Nantucket, MA