I don’t really like people all that much, but if I had to pick a person to like it would probably be my Gramps. And since it’s Memorial Day I’m gonna memorialize him!
In all seriousness (Or, at least as serious as I can be) everyone loved Gramps. And I might just have been his number one fan.
My dad died when I was six, and my mom was a court reporter and worked all the time. She did the best she could, but she was at work a lot.
My Gramps and Grams had to raise me while she was at work, so I spent a lot of time at their (now demolished) house in the wilds of Brunswick Ohio.
When I was inside with Grams, we were watching soap operas and Jerry Springer or Montell Williams. (Which did teach me a lot about life)
When I was outside, with Gramps, that was when I learned how to be a man! Well, I never really learned how to be a man, but Gramps did try to teach me, God bless him!!
The man was not a big talker, but he KNEW his plants!
Now, knowing plants may not sound manly, but have you seen a tomato worm!? I think he had to use his WWII skills to navigate through them.
Yes, he was a WWII veteran. He was firing cannons in the Big One.
This made it so I was one of the few people he could hear. I don’t know if comes through, in my writing, but I HAVE A LOUD ANNOYING VOICE.
So, we had a bit of a special bond, because he could actually hear me, and I could talk to him.
And he was funny! You rarely heard his jokes because he was soft-spoken, but he had a sly sense of humor. I was disappointed when I gave him my Marx Brothers DVDs and he said he didn’t like them. Then, I realized, he probably didn’t like them because Groucho talked too fast, and he couldn’t hear him. (He could have at least enjoyed Harpo!)
But Gramps did know how to be funny. One of my favorite memories is when my best buds and I went over to his house to film a short video for one of my friend’s college videography project. It was a joke project, because my friend convinced his professor that it was a short film about an old man who had dementia and thought he was seeing aliens. The professor BELIEVED this, but my Gramps was in on the joke. He was never senile. (My Grams, sadly, got dementia, but not my Gramps.) He had it together all the way until he died. But he PRETENDED to be senile for this short film. He did a hilarious scene where he stood like a foot away from the hummingbird feeder, and held up binoculars, to try to see it better. It was hilarious!
Other than maybe Jonathan Richman, there are few other people who ever walked this earth as pure concentrated good, but I think my Gramps was one of them. (Or maybe Jesus)
So, this Memorial Day I choose to memorialize Gramps! If there is a Heaven, he is probably like the big man on campus of Heaven at this point! (Other than God I guess.)
And if you can hear me up there, AND I’M SURE YOU CAN, Luv U always, Gramps!
Leave a Reply