The Kendall's Speech

In yesterday's story, entitled "School of Knocks", I mentioned that it was inspired by the speech writing assignment given to my daughter's grade five class.  Kendall's effort is far superior to any of my elementary school creations and likely superior to anything I've written, ever.  Little did I know that a winning topic for my oratorical aspirations was right in front of me, feeding me, taxiing me, teaching me, loving me.

Here is Kendall's speech, as it was written and preformed by her.  It is worthy of an Oscar.  Enjoy.

Hello fellow classmates, teachers and judges. My topic today is my grandmother. My grandmother’s name is Betty but everybody calls her Grammie. Grammie is 72 years old and is a retired kindergarten teacher. She lives in an apartment in our basement. Grammie is my dad’s mom.

Grammie is a bundle of energy. Every day she gets up, has breakfast, walks the dogs and has already left her house for the day even before we leave for school. Every day she has something to do, whether it’s driving cancer patients to their appointments, playing bridge or bowling with her friends, cooking meals or babysitting my cousins who may be home at sick.

Grammie loves doing the daily crossword puzzle in the newspaper and never misses an episode of jeopardy. Grammie especially loves watching sports like curling and tennis. One time she was so anxious to get home to watch the tennis finals that she hopped out of her car and forgot to put it in park. The car continued to roll and fell over the small cliff into the woods in our yard. Grammie didn’t care about it until the tennis game was over.

Grammie loves to pick Blueberries and Partridge berries in the fall. She spends a lot of time picking them, and when the season is over, her whole freezer is filled with berries. Lucky for us she has enough berries to make yummy cakes, cookies and deserts all year long.

Grammie is awesome because she loves to play with her grand kids. In fact she lets us do anything we want. She lets us turn her house into a giant fort, use all her baking supplies to make concoctions,  ride our bikes in her house and eat cookies and treats before the big dinner she has cooked. She takes us to a lot of places and does a lot of things with us. When we were little she would play dress up and tea party with us for hours, And now she is always ready to play a game of Crazy 8’s with me and my friends. She has even taken us for rides on the city bus to the mall and lets us collect snails and bring them back to her house.

Grammie is always doing nice things for people. She makes meals and treats for her friends.  Sometimes she donates them to things like teacher appreciation week and the girl guides soup supper. Grammie is always ready to lend a hand to anyone that needs help and she never forgets anyone’s birthday. My mom says she is like a fairy god mother because if you happen to mention that you need or want something she will get it for you before you even have a chance. The doctor said she even saved my grandfather’s life by acting quickly and giving him an aspirin when he was having a heart attack.

Grammie also loves dogs. She has her own dog Blue that follows her everywhere and goes everywhere with her. She also spoils our dogs with the Sunday dinner leftovers whether it’s prime rib or homemade pizza. My uncle’s dog, Jack, always goes to Grammie for a special Werther’s candy.

We are really lucky to have Grammie. Most people think that she moved in with us so that we could take care of her but really, Grammie is who takes care of all of us.