Grandma Eckman's favorites, Part One

Many writers use various tools and guides to assist them in developing characters and story. As part of mine, I have combined several questionnaires to determine several of my great-grandmother’s favorites, and included some comments from her, as if the answers were acquired in an interview:

Flower: African Violet

Movie: “Easter Parade”

Actor: James Dean

Actress: Joanne Woodward (Leta: “And not just because she married Paul Newman. I liked her even before that.”)

Movie Genre: musicals

Song: “I Got Lost in his Arms” (Leta: “That’s from ‘Annie Get Your Gun,’ you know.”)

Singer(s): Bing Crosby (Leta: “Even though he was a shit to his family”), Nat King Cole (Leta: “He sang pretty good for a colored guy – you like colored men, don’t you?” Me: “Grandma!” Leta: “Well, you seem to have a little bit of that in you, like how my granddaughter liked much older men, only different.” Me: “No, I mean, no one uses the word ‘colored.’ It’s—“ Leta: “I know, I know, Black.”), the Lennon Sisters, Mother Maybelle Carter, Elvis Presley, and Norma Zimmer on “The Lawrence Welk Show.”

Musical instrument: cello

Author(s): Mark Twain (Leta: “He just keeps me in stitches.”) and Garrison Keillor (Leta: “I haven’t read any of his books—I know he writes them—I just listen to him on the radio.”)

Book Genre: mysteries (Leta: “I never much liked love stories—too forced. Love doesn’t work like that.”)

City: Fort Lauderdale (Leta: “But after the time I visited my sister Mabel, I sure had a thing for British Columbia.”)

Country: “I always thought that Spain sounded like a place I could go, but I don’t know anyone who’s ever been there.”

Food: ice cream (Leta: “Sometimes I would eat it for breakfast, but I had to be careful. It all goes to your hips, you know.”)

Drink: Scotch

Restaurant: Bill Knapp’s, Mel Berman’s and Ponderosa Steak House

Breakfast: steak and eggs

Snack: Pop-Tarts and Ovaltine

Candy: fruit flavored jellies

Color: blue (Leta: “I know, nearly everyone likes blue.”)

Place to shop: Woodville Mall

Things to do: sew (Leta: “I always loved to sew, even when I was a little girl.”)

TV shows: “The Lawrence Welk Show,” “Julia”, “Laugh-In”, “M*A*S*H”, “The Six Million Dollar Man,” “Gunsmoke”, “Little House on the Prairie” and “Concentration.”