When my sisters—Nancy, Judi, Joanne, Merialice, and Chere—get together, it doesn’t take long before the conversation shifts to their wild and wonderful rides with Grandma Cooper. Those were the days when our grandma fancied herself a “powder puff driver,” a title she wore with pride and a healthy dose of mischief.
Grandma Cooper’s chariot was a Chevrolet, equipped with an inline six engine and a three-on-the-tree transmission. To the untrained eye, it was just an average car. But to her, it was a high-performance race car in disguise, ready to take on any challenger who dared pull up beside her at a red light.
“She had this look,” Nancy always begins, her voice filled with fondness. “She’d glance over at the guy in the next car, size him up, and then get this glint in her eye like, ‘Watch this, kiddo.’”
The game was simple: whenever a young man pulled up beside her at a stoplight, Grandma would rev her engine, which sounded more eager than intimidating. Then, with a sly grin, she’d turn to her granddaughters and declare, “Let’s beat this guy and see if we can’t pick him up at the next light!”
“She made it sound like we were in a souped-up hot rod,” Joanne chimes in, giggling. “But let’s face it, that Chevy wasn’t leaving anyone in the dust.”
Still, Grandma would stomp on the accelerator with all the confidence in the world, the engine growling as the car jerked forward. My sisters recall the way she’d expertly work the column shifter, her ungloved hands flying as if she were competing in a professional drag race. The young man in the other car, often puzzled or amused, would speed off effortlessly. Grandma didn’t mind. She wasn’t trying to win; she was trying to make memories.
“Even if we didn’t catch them, she’d make a big show of it,” Chere recalls. “‘Well, we almost had him!’ she’d say, laughing like it was the funniest thing in the world.”
The car rides weren’t all about imaginary races, though. Grandma used those drives to bond with her granddaughters, sharing her humor, wisdom, and occasionally a little life advice. “She’d tell us not to let anyone underestimate us,” Merialice remembers. “She said, ‘If you’ve got the guts to go after something, you’re already ahead of the game.’”
But, of course, it was Grandma’s antics at red lights that stole the show. She had a knack for turning the mundane into the extraordinary, for taking an ordinary trip to the store and transforming it into an adventure full of laughter and thrill.
“Her car might’ve been an inline six, but in her head, it was a rocket,” Judi adds, shaking her head. “And we loved her for it.”
As the story goes, one day Grandma actually got a wave and a smile from one of her “rivals” at a stoplight. She turned to her granddaughters, utterly triumphant. “See?” she exclaimed. “Told you we could pick him up at the next light!”
To this day, whenever my sisters recount those rides, they can’t help but cheer: “Go, Grandma, go!” It’s a phrase that’s come to mean more than just a playful encouragement. It’s a reminder of Grandma Cooper’s spunky, never-quit attitude and her ability to make every moment a little more fun, a little more memorable, and a lot more full of life.
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