In and Out of Our Lives They Go

We’re wallowing now in summer, and it’s not the heat that gets you; it’s the humanity.

“Oh, the humanity!” cried the radio reporter when the Hindenburg blew up 64 years ago. And I know just what he meant.

Up the street, a gigantic white moving van arrives--slowly, ominously, like the beast in some summer blockbuster. I hate moving vans.

“It’s nice in New Jersey,” I tell the neighbor kid as she prepares to move.

“It is?”

“Summer, fall, winter, spring,” I tell her. “They have it all there.”

The kid nods. She tells me about her new house in New Jersey. It’s two stories tall, with a computer nook. Nice neighborhood. Once settled in, the kid is thinking about mowing lawns.

I tell her how I once had a mowing business, back when kids did odd jobs for money. These days, most kids whine for a living, which is nothing to be ashamed about. But a little work now and then can be good for a kid, too.

“How much did you get?” the neighbor girl wants to know.

“About two bucks.”

“Two dollars?” she asks.

“Completely tax free,” I say.

The prospect of such sheltered riches makes the move to New Jersey even more exciting.

Jersey has much to offer. Look what it did for “The Sopranos.” Twenty-two Emmy nominations. Imagine what a kid with a lawn mower and a decent work ethic could do.

“You could get your own show,” I tell her.

“I’d rather mow,” she says.

“Suit yourself,” I say.

“In the fall, I’m raking leaves,” she says.

“New Jersey can use a kid like you,” I say.

The moving van fills. The neighbor kid waves and takes off to find happiness in the Garden State, where they say the lawns are always greener.

I hate moving vans.

*

But as some people leave, others arrive. Grandma, for one. Been too long since we’ve seen her.

“Come on, Dad, we’re going to be late,” the little girl says.

So off to LAX we go. Talk about heat. Talk about humanity.

As always, LAX is a garden party of air transit, where if you get stuck in the far left lane, you will be swept swirling, as if down a toilet, into one of the mammoth parking garages, never to be seen or heard from again.

Not that this is a particularly bad way to go. It just complicates things with insurance claims and other survivor benefits. My advice: Stay to the right. Live to see another day.

“Why is everybody at airports so sad?” the little girl asks.

It’s true. At LAX, you rarely see a smile. People shake hands and hug, or wave to each other in odd and often obscene ways. Once in a while, you’ll see a good fistfight in baggage claim. But few smiles.

Wait, there’s the little girl’s grandma now, coming off the plane in her nice travel clothes. Nobody dresses up much to fly anymore. Except grandmas.

“Grandma!” the little girl screams and runs to her arms.

“All right, break it up,” I mumble.

Back home, my mom’s visit goes well. She sleeps in a bedroom with a giant poster of Jennifer Love Hewitt on the wall, which smiles at her each morning with big starlet teeth.

But that doesn’t get a grandma down. She buys dinner. She marvels over the grandkids.

“I think,” she says one morning, “that your daughter has her days and nights mixed up.”

“She’s 18,” I say.

“That explains it,” she says.

On a Monday, we go to the beach. Manhattan Beach, where the sand is wide and the parking spaces are rare as rubies.

“You surfing?” I ask her.

“No, but I brought my thong,” Grandma says.

“Grandma has a thong?” the little girl asks.

“This summer, all the grandmas in the Midwest are wearing thongs,” their grandmother says.

This is not your mother’s grandmother. Today’s grandmothers are a different breed--more active, healthier.

All this despite having raised us, a mouthy me-me-me generation that would’ve broken the spirit of a less resilient bunch of mothers.

Whoever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Kids included. These grandmothers are tough.

Still, this particular grandma doesn’t understand why things have to change so darned fast. Why do sons and daughters have to leave? What did CBS do with Cronkite? Why can’t Reagan still be president?

I used to have quick answers to such things.

“Did you pick up her bourbon?” I whisper to my wife.

“What’s bourbon?” the little girl asks.

I can write easily about most things. This woman stumps me. I go up for a metaphor. Boom, she blocks it.

I try sentiment instead. Yuck. Too damn sticky.

So I try chemistry. She’s one part Shirley MacLaine, one part Mother Teresa. A splash of vermouth. Still doesn’t capture her.

Like your mom, she’s too good for words.

“The mountains here are so beautiful,” she says as we drive at dusk, looking for something nice to say about the state that stole one of her kids.

“When they’re not on fire,” I say.

Six days later, we head back to the airport. At 76, she’s strong as a linebacker. She can play the middle. She can stop the run.

But she’s reaching an age at which you never know when a hug might be your last hug. I hug her three times, then hug her again. “Have a great trip,” I say too quickly, always lousy at goodbyes.

Back in Chicago, she’s got her yard to take care of. At 76, she still mows the yard. Clips the hedges. In the fall, she rakes the leaves.

You have to admire such work ethic, which still surfaces now and then, usually in youngsters like her.

Chris Erskine can be reached at chris.erskine@latimes.com.