I Remember Way Back When.

When I was a little boy, my Dad's father used to like to carve things out of wood. He'd make for me all kinds of stuff. He'd take a plank of wood, slice off thin pieces of a wooden pole, nail it together and ask me what it looked like. I said to him, that's a car. Then he'd chuckle at me and let me play with it. That always made me feel good. The problem was, sometimes he also liked to widdle wood. Now, when he widdled wood? Watch out! You sit with him, you're gonna hear a story. The moment he said "well you know..." I was already heading for the back door. The thing was though, something in me always made me go back. Guess I somehow knew I didn't have much time left. So I sat there and somehow, he always seemed to know what me and my brothers or cousins and friends had been talking about alone in one of our bedrooms. We all had rooms there. All of us. At any given time my Grandparents' house was like a boarding house. We'd have relatives coming from Alaska *and* Bakersfield. We had kids studying college from San Francisco *and* Santa Barbara. All relatives. So I sat there with him. Sat all morning long sometimes. Then he'd think for a moment and look at me. So I'd ask what's up. Often what he told me was the same kind of public service message I had heard on He-Man or GI Joe. Know what's expected of you and to make good choices. Then I'd say okay Grandpa and he'd say to stop and listen. Really listen. He said that people don't always give you a choice. That he didn't feel anyone had ever given him one. He'd say I had to know my own mind. So I listened. He'd ask do you hear that? I'd say no then he'd ask what it was. I'd pause and be like "air?" He'd just shake his head and say "peace." I was like how could nothing be peaceful? He'd ask if anyone was telling me what to do. I was like yeah, you are. He didn't much like to be sassed. I thought I was being honest. He'd correct himself and ask if any of the bigger kids were telling me what to do. I'd say no then realize where he was coming from. What he meant was that when you're alone you can be the boss. You're free to become anything you want. Willy Wonka had earlier called that "pure imagination." So he'd look at me. "Now you don't really need to smoke to have that, do you?" My ears wiggled back and I felt stunned like he just whipped me with a cowboy belt. He knew I had asthma for one. Also he must've learned that it hadn't stopped me from playing the *real* Dungeons and Dragons with my brothers. Have you ever seen a dog when it gets a whiff of reefer blown their way? Those teens had me in their room lit like that Spuds McKenzie dog in Next Friday.



Motorhead - Ace of Spades (1980.) Video courtesy of Mercury Records. All rights reserved.

That could account for why I often thought it okay to skip first grade and nap in the nurses' office. I'll save why I got hyper for next time. So I nervously nodded and replied "yes Grandpa." Then he'd simply say "good" and go back to widdling. I'd ask "so that's it?" He'd just look at me and pause. Crickets chirped. The family cat walked by and yawned stretching its paws. My Grandpa stood and scared off the cat. He hated that cat. It was a white fluffy furball. Much like Snowbell in Stuart Little. Or Mr. Tinkles in Cats and Dogs. That cat ran off like a new dad on Maury. When my Grandpa sat down he'd tell me "you're young yet but you're not too young to hear this. You know what time to get up and where you got to be for work. If you get in trouble somewhere in between then you only got yourself to blame." Then my Grandma called us in for dinner so that's where we left it. Looking back now, I'm sad we didn't get alot of time together. I had only turned 7 when he got a stroke and developed Alzheimer's. What he taught me though has stuck for a lifetime. I don't need a vice when I got guilt. Not to mention you don't gotta say alot to people for your point to come across. Especially when a screaming cat flying out the back door says it all.