Grandfather's Day

Today is Father's Day. I didn't see my dad, but I will see him next weekend. Meanwhile, I thought I'd write about another dad. My mom's father, who died fifteen years ago. I was only eleven when he passed away, but I used to go to his house every day before and after elementary school. That was also the cool place for my friends and me to have slumber parties during the summer. Nana always slept in her chair in the den anyway, but Grandpa would take the couch when we slept over, leaving us the master bedroom and the bed therein.

I'm a lot like him. I didn't understand that as much at the time, but I see it more and more as the years go by. He wasn't a talkative man, but he was hilarious and sarcastic if you knew him. He loved thought problems. He loved typing and photography, and tried to keep up with the latest technology in both. I remember being vastly impressed when I saw the special "cursive" disc for his new typewriter. He loved music, and taught himself to play the guitar and piano. He was a master woodworker and metal worker. He built me a set of shelves for my "clubhouse" (a.k.a. the garage), a doll bed and a doll chest, all the shelves in our kitchen, TV trays we still use, windchimes, wooden initials for my window (he let me draw them myself, actually), a workbench, many chess sets, and a telescope through which we used to look at the moon. Although he only had a couple years of high school himself, he used to tutor kids in calculus. He taught me enough math to be years ahead of my grade in school - and it was fun.

Grandpa kept careful and extensive records, something I'm also a touch obsessive about. I recently found a datebook from 1983 that belonged to him (yes, Basement o' Wonders) and it's full of entries such as "Renewed license for passport. $7.00. Money order No. 43858" and "Got a $22.88 refund on my Wis. income tax for 1982" and "Made appointment with Granger Mot. to have car fixed (rough idle) Thur. May 5 8:00 A.M." All written in his neat, straight, blocky printing and cursive. Within the datebook, though, I found something else. Three small sheets of scrap paper - paper he used to cut up himself and store in a particular slot I can still envision in his basement shelves. On one sheet he neatly wrote out his signature seven times. On the others, he wrote the following:

I'll set here and practice my penmanship for a little while because I need the practice. It seems to me I never write anything anymore, I always type instead. So from now on I'm going to write a couple of paragraphs every day and see if that improves my writing. Today is Friday May 31, 1991. I'll be able to cash my pension check tomorrow because it will be the first of the month. June. We'll get our Social Security check the third. That will be Monday. I think I'll quit now and do something else.

I'll set here for a little while and practice my penmanship. When I was younger I used to be able to write with a firm steady hand, but now when I'm old my hand is unsteady and my writing is very shaky, and I can hardly read my own writing, but if I do this every day it keeps my hand more steady and it's more like it used to be. Today is Tuesday May 28, 1991. I'm going to be 75 years old this coming November if I live that long. I think I have practiced enough now so I'm going to quit and do something else.

As it happened, he didn't live that long. He died on September 23, 1991. His birthday fell the day after mine in November. If I had been a boy, my name was to be Robert, after him.

These momentos make me miss him something fierce. I don't think about him all the time, of course, but when I do it always takes me by surprise. I wish I hadn't been so young when he died. I wish I hadn't taken so much of his kindness and generosity for granted. I wish I'd been able to have a conversation with him, even just one, as an adult. I wish my mom still had her dad in her life.

Well! I'm sure that brought cheer to everyone! At any rate, I hope today was a very fine one for all the dads out there. And all those who have dads, too.


Meta-Father's Day - my grandpa in the arms of his grandpa, Nels.