Well, a friend of mine got me to thinking today when he blogged about memories of his grandpa so I thought I would share a couple of memories of my own. The first is of Grandpa on Mom’s side of the family. Sadly, he was lost to me early in life when he died. The last memory I have of him is there in the hospital. I can STILL see the box planter with all of the plants within, located just next to the stairs leading up to the higher floors of the hospital.
At any rate that wasn’t the memory I wanted to share. This grandpa liked his cigars. My cousin and I, who pretty much grew up together for the first six years of our life, would sometimes get into Grandpa’s cig stash. One day he caught us and (I think in an effort to dissuade us from smoking in the future) he made us smoke an entire cigar each. We went GREEN (and you know, I don’t think we ever did touch another cigar of his after that).
The other memory involves us being VERY naughty. Grandpa would NEVER spank or discipline us. We were HIS boys! …Um, but one time my cousin and I sort of got a little bit out of hand when we filled up the gas tank of the lawnmower with gravel. Oh, poor Grandpa. He had to take the lawnmower apart and clean everything up. When complete, Grandpa went into the house to tell Grandma and my mom not to let us anywhere near the lawnmower again. (Meanwhile, we had gone out the back door and …. you guessed it; filled up the mower with gravel [again]. )
I don’t understand why but Grandpa gave BOTH of us one gentle swat on the hindquarters. (You would have thought Freddy Krueger had just come after us. We went running inside to “tell on Grandpa” and let mama and Grandma know what he had done to us!) LOL!!!! I never did anything like that again, though my cousin did later try to help Grandma out by filling up her car with water. See it was always my cousin’s fault!) ;-)
~.^oO^.~
Now, a memory of my grandfather on the paternal (sperm-donar) side of my family. Gaga was great! Quiet but kind and loving. Most of my memories of him involve him being out in his workshop. He LOVED to work with his hands, building one thing or another. I have two cedar chests and one cedar bedside table that he built for me. (I was the first-born grandchild and … um, given a little bit of preferential treatment I s’pose. I deserved it. ;-)
The funniest memory of Gaga involves my return with an ex-boyfriend of mine. That side of the family hadn’t [quite] figured out that their oldest grandchild was … um, shall we say it(?), GAY yet! I needed to return home to visit family and I really didn’t want to leave Charles to his own devices here in Dallas. (Long story; I have a bad reputation for picking “good” relationship material. {sigh} never mind that… back to the memory)
So Charles and I are visiting my grand-folks. Some of my aunts and uncles (who QUICKLY figured out what the story was) were there. My grandmother and I think even my great aunt figured out the score fairly early but not Gaga!
Charles and I had gone out front for a moment and, I’m told, Gaga was heard to say to some of the rest of my family, “I’ll bet Michael is interested in dating Charle’s sister.” LOL! Poor, sweet, misled and innocent Gaga. I am certain he is up there right now looking down on me and saying, “I’ll bet Charles DOES have a sister … who would be better for you than Charles was” (and he wouldn’t be wrong about that either – Charles was a disaster … LOL!!!) ..but I digress.
I miss both of my Grandfathers, for different reasons. Grandpa (on Mom’s side) because I just didn’t get enough time with him and family is really important to me. I miss Gaga because; well, Gaga could be so sweet. Such a small-framed man who had not a bad word to speak about anybody. That wasn’t a trait that rubbed off on his kids, wife or sister-in-law. While I loved all of them too I (sadly) have to admit they could definately talk trash about others behind their backs. It wasn’t something I cared much for much and I let most of them know my feelings on the matter.
That’s all for now.
Best and Blessings…
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