When I was very little, I don't believe a single birthday or Christmas went by that my grandmother, Wilma Black, whom I called Willie, didn't give me at least two presents. There was always the really neat toy or other gadget that caught my young eyes and I got immediate enjoyment from. 
Then, there was the other gift. Frankly, it wasn't as much fun. I was far too young to understand or appreciate what it meant. It looked like money, but you couldn't spend it right away. All I remember understanding about savings bonds was that they were something you could maybe turn into real money at some point down the road, but when you're that little, the years you'd have to wait before being able to do anything with them might as well have been forever.
But when you're a loving grandmother and give bonds to the grandson you're crazy about on a regular basis--as often as Willie did--those bonds add up over the years. As I grew up and kept getting more and more bonds as gifts (many from her), they developed into a pretty decent sized stack.
Of course, they do eventually mature, and at a certain point, they stop maturing, so you might as well do something with them then, like reinvesting, or turning them into cash.
One day, during a conversation I was having with Willie easily forty plus years ago, I jokingly called her a cheap, crummy grandmother. With a description like that coming from such a young child, Willie thought that was hilarious, so the name stuck.
For many years, whenever a gift was exchanged, the "To" or "From" tag bore the name Cheap Crummy. Some of the envelopes my savings bond gifts came in were signed, "Love, Cheap Crummy."
Not long ago, my wife, Colleen, and I went through all the bonds I've ever received and sorted them, pulling the bonds that had matured. I took the matured bonds to the bank and cashed them in. I'd have been smart to invest the money back into something else, but not having anything really in mind for the money, and not wanting to dump it into an existing account for fear it would, in effect, lose its identity as gift money, I held the cash in an envelope in a safe at home. I figured I'd do something with it one day.
One day has finally come.
Over the past few years, I've admired the ever advancing technology of digital photography. I've never owned a digital SLR camera, mainly because of cost. I haven't been buying many things for myself lately, choosing instead to go easy on expenditures amid the current state of our business. I've watched as the technology came from behind and surpassed by miles in some cases what film cameras did in their day.
Colleen has been watching me do research on cameras recently and, knowing my hesitancy to spend the money, she suggested using the cash I got from the bonds Willie gave me all those years ago. It would probably make your grandmother very happy to know you were using that money to get something you really want, she said. Those words really hit home and stayed with me. The more I thought about it, the more I realized: she's absolutely right.
So, several decades later--longer than I would have ever guessed--I am getting one final gift from Wilma. A new Nikon digital SLR camera and telephoto lens, with plenty of bells and whistles, arrive tomorrow. From the research I've done, I have no doubt I'll get some great use out of it and will probably enjoy it tremendously. It's a purchase for both pleasure and need for me, but I really think of it as something else. It's a tribute to Willie. I have to think she would be smiling to know what she made possible, twenty years after leaving us.
From a childhood of wonderful memories she made possible for me, including staying with her in her small Plainview, Texas home one summer and travelling with her, I have come, yet again, to realize how special and good Cheap Crummy was to me, and how lucky I was to have her as my grandmother.
I will think of her when I use my new camera.
David
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