Gramp/Snippets

This weekend I was talking to my mother about memories from my childhood and it made me realize that very few of my memories from a long time ago are complete, most of them are just snippets.

It started with talking about some memories of time spent with my grandfather. Now my grandfather is still alive. He turned 88 in September (our birthdays are two weeks apart and we often celebrated them together at family gatherings) and until recently he’d been doing pretty well. Last week I got a call from my Mom, she sounded scared so I knew immediately that something was wrong. Given that she’s not terribly mobile I figured it was my grandmother, but as it turns out my grandfather had been admitted to the hospital and the thinking at the time was that he may have had a heart attack. Now the man had a quintuple bypass about 16 years ago and since that time he’s had a pacemaker, but again he’s been doing well. He had gone into the hospital that morning to have some kidney stones zapped and something happened. It turns out his lungs had filled with fluid and he suffered congestive heart failure (not specifically a heart attack) and I guess that’s what has triggered a bunch of these little memories. He’s still in the hospital and when he’s discharged he’ll be going straight to rehab for 2-4 weeks.

The first one we got talking about was driving around in his truck when I would visit. We’d do any number of things like stopping at McD’s (he’d always get the coffee and filet-o-fish) or maybe going candlepin bowling where’d I’d always manage to win at least one string even though Gramp had a 100+ avg (pretty good for candlepins). Many times our trips revolved around his business, he worked on refrigeration systems mainly for hockey rinks, apple orchards and dairy farms of which there are plenty in New England. This job also allowed him to travel quite a bit, he installed rinks all over New England at colleges and prep schools, but he also traveled to the Midwest to work on dairy farms and as far away as Guatemala. Going around to the orchards and rinks was pretty cool when I was a kid. I could tell people liked my gramp (I do too, he’s a hell of a nice guy), he’s a true old time Yankee in the best sense of the word.

Anyway as I said I have a variety of memories but one thing that always seemed to happen was a pit stop at Idyllwild farms in Acton, MA. Now if you go there it’s a very upscale farm stand where you can get fresh produce of any imaginable variety. What was the attraction for me almost 30 years ago? Peanuts. Yup that’s right, peanuts. I love peanuts, you could say I’m nuts for them (sorry). Anyway, we’d stop by because my gramp knew I loved them too. They kept them in an open half-barrel and you’d scoop them up into a paper bag. I wouldn’t eat any on the way home, I’d just enjoy the last 15 minutes in Gramp’s truck as we wound through the back roads and he snuck one last Winston before we got home to Gram (he hasn’t smoked in years and even hid it then). When we got home I’d head straight to the breezeway of Gram’s house, which was the only place a kid could be a kid in her house.

Let me interrupt here and say I absolutely adore my grandmother. I have so many memories of her as well, and someday I’m sure I’ll write about them here. Most of them are very fond memories of Thanksgiving and Christmas at her house (remind me to tell you about the grandfather clock there terrorized me as a child), but she is, to this day, a very particular woman. Everything must be just so. Her home was definitely not “kid friendly” but the breezeway was our territory when we were there. It was the brightest room in the house having full glass walls on both sides, and it had the only TV that wasn’t in their bedroom. It also had a small hutch full of toys and games, some of which must have belonged to my mother and aunt when they were kids. I remember spending night’s there playing yahtzee with the two of them when I’d go spend a week there during the summer. Anyway, there’s about a dozen or so posts in my visits to my grandparents let me get back on point.
So we’d get home and I’d plop onto the floor in front of the TV and check to see if there was a baseball game or a boxing match on. Anyone who knows me knows that I am a huge baseball fan and most specifically a Red Sox fan. I love the pastoral pace of the game and I have enjoyed watching it live and on TV since I was about 5. Most people associate Monday nights with football, I always looked forward to Monday Night Baseball on ABC when I was a kid. But some of you may be surprised to know that I used to love boxing as a kid. One of my earliest heroes in the sports world was Muhammed Ali. Now back then he was my hero because of his athletic prowess (and the fact that someone wrote what I thought was a great song about him). Little did I know that he was worthy of being my hero for so many other reasons. But back then one of the staples of The Wide World of Sports was boxing. Typically it was a heavyweight match, but occasionally it was a middle or welterweight bout. I really began to appreciate the amazing skills that some of these smaller fighters had, not only could they hit hard, but they moved so quick it was truly stunning. Probably the best bout I ever remember was between Marvelous Marvin Hagler and Sugar Ray Leonard. Hagler lost, but he really won. I still cannot figure out how that bout didn’t go his way. When that travesty of justice occurred boxing lost me forever. I now understand that boxing is a dirty sport and has been for decades, but back then I thought it was the purest athletic competition there was. One man versus another with nothing between them but some leather gloves. Yes, it could be brutal, but there were no victims, just two guys sizing each other up.

Almost as soon as I plopped in front of the tube my grandmother would be there with a bowl for me to put the shells and husks in and she’d sit behind me and knit. My grandfather would sit in his chair and read a magazine or a book. Sometimes he’d look up and comment on the action of what was going on. He was never a huge Red Sox fan. Growing up when he did he had two choices for pro baseball teams in Boston and he was a Braves fan. The Braves left Boston in the early 50’s I believe. They moved to Milwaukee where they would become the team of the most prominent homerun hitter of all-time, Hammerin’ Hank Aaron. They were also the team of Hall of Fame pitcher, Bob Feller, the Braves have since moved again and now reside in Atlanta. I know my parents sent me to stay with my grandparents to get me out of their hair for a week, but I always had a good time. They didn’t spoil me rotten, I always had a few chores to do, and I helped Gramp out. In many ways I think my memories of those summer weeks were better because I wasn’t spoiled, I just blended into their lives for the week.

Now I take my son to see them every so often. As much as I can, but not as often as I should. He’s only one, but he has a great time there and he always brightens their day. They aren’t as active as they once were so he’ll never get to have the same memories of them that I do. In fact I don’t know where he will get those types of memories from. His maternal grandfather died 9 years ago, Christina’s mother lives in an assisted living facility. My dad lives across the country in Seattle (though I must admit the two of them bonded quite well when they were here in January) with his wife Judy. My mother is close by and gets down to see Coop at least every other week. She’s great with him, they adore each other, maybe that’s what he’ll remember, I don’t know. I think she’s going to go into full retirement next year (when the SS kicks in), I wonder if I can talk her into moving a little closer to us? I’d love to have her nearby and have Coop spend as much time with her as he can.