My Grandpa

     Grandpa isn’t far from my thoughts either as Father’s Day was celebrated a few days ago.  He’s been gone 5 years now.  He slipped out of this world while I was in Peru for the first time, but also has left me with many memories. 

     Some of my fondest memories are the way Grandpa liked to tease.  He and I would banter back and forth teasing one another and getting Grandma all riled up.  At other times he’d let a cat or dog into the house on purpose just to get Grandma’s goats.  Although he was truly a bit hard of hearing later in life, he chose to have selective hearing on many occasions just to get a reaction out of Grandma.  Really, I think he spent a good portion of his later years stirring up little bits of chaos in Grandma’s orderly house just to bring a little more life to their home. 

    

His Sweet Tooth

     Grandpa was known for his sweet tooth.  I’m not really sure there was something sweet that he didn’t like.  A glass goose sat on the kitchen table or on top of the refrigerator stocked with lemon drops for Grandpa and any grandchild who passed by.  

     When he’d go into the small brick bank on Main Street in Wakefield, he’d take a sucker for himself and then pick up a few for his grandkids.  The best suckers weren’t the spherical Dum Dums common today, but the flat circular lollipops of usually two or three colors, often green white and orange swirled together, that came out of a clear wrapper and caressed our tongues with sweet fruity flavors. 

     When Grandma would make cookies, Grandpa would already make several passes through hthe kitchen as he smelled them baking.  Within minutes of them being out of the oven on cooling racks, he’d slip in an steal the hot cookies while Grandma had her back turned.  When she’d catch him, he just complimented her on the cookies and suggested that she make them more often. 

   

Stubborn Streak

   Grandpa was stubborn about many things, but one thing I remember well was when he was given a golf cart to drive around the farm, so he wouldn’t have to walk so much or to transport his gardening tools.  That first year, the golf cart sat and he refused to use it, but come the next spring when he felt like the idea would be accepted as his own rather than a suggestion from others, he became nearly inseparable from it making many trips up and down and across the driveway daily.  He even then liked to comment that he had a pretty nice ride, and no one brought up the fact that he hadn’t wanted to use it earlier.  We all pretended to have forgotten.

The Mail

     The noon hour when the mail arrived was Grandpa’s favorite time of day.  He loved to receive mail and it didn’t matter what it was.  When Grandma would get her hands on the mail first, she through the junk mail in the trash before sending it on to Grandpa who could be found seated at his desk in the dining room or reclining in his chair in the southwest corner of the living room.  When Grandpa got the mail, he didn’t throw anything out until he’d opened every last advertisement or credit card offer, just to see what it was. 

     Reading the newspaper was a daily ritual for him.  He subscribed to the Pender Times, the Wakefield Republican and the Omaha World Herald.  He read them all as well as the Morning Shopper and some green and white paper that had agricultural news or adds.  Sometimes he’d doze off reading the paper, but was sure to return to it later in the day.  I didn’t know until much later that he was allergic to the ink in the newspapers, but that didn’t stop him. 

The Overalls

     Grandpa was a farmer through and through.  They had a picture of two little farmers on the landing towards the upstairs for the majority of my life, in which the two toddlers were dressed in overalls and one asked, “You been farming long?”  In nearly all of my early memories, those overalls of thin blue and grey stripes were Grandpa’s uniform.  From the pockets of his overalls, he’d pull out miniature boxes of Aztec Chiclet gum for us when he stopped the mower or walked by the little green merry-go-round or orange teeter-totter to tease us.  We’d open the boxes with delight and pop the two little green rectangles into our mouths and begin chewing.

     Potatoes had to be planted on Good Friday.  Grandpa was the expert.  His knees covered in moist brown dirt, he’d pull out pieces of potatoes from a large paper sack and instruct us where to place them and how to cover them.  Dirt beneath our finger nails, the smell of spring on our clothes and a little chilled from the early spring air, we’d take a break with Grandpa when Grandma brought us a pitcher of freshly mixed lemonade, then we’d get back to planting.

     Grandpa could make anything grow and knew when to harvest each crop, but one thing we never did agree on was the size at which cucumbers should be plucked from their vines.  I was in favor of small,  sweet veggies with equally small seeds, while Grandpa loved to see how big the cucumbers would grow and didn’t mind eating their large slimy seeds.  For years, when I was down at the house, I’d look out the kitchen window to see a man in overalls and a grey cap, tromp across the driveway from the garden, up the sidewalk, up the stairs and hand me a giant cucumber with a smile on his face cautioning me to make sure I didn’t eat it up before he had a chance to share it at dinnertime.