I had two.

One owned a radio station, drank, died of Alzheimer's Disease. Grew up in Colorado. You see a lot of his face in mine. You also see a lot of his first wife, my grandmother, the one he left, the one my father never met, in me.
I remember the absent look in his eyes, and the various Continental Credit Card gifts he had for me at birthdays.
A China doll, a brass unicorn, an piggybank elephant.
He bought an abandoned hotel and filled it with all he'd hoarded in 60 years before we put him in a home.
When he died, there was a 21-gun salute and a massive effort to clean and sell the hotel. So great was our madness that we threw out most of the books; I still have the records. Discovered the Weavers and lots of Liberace in his record chest.

My other grandpa was a farmer. Potatoes, yes. Corn, alfalfa seed, sugar beets. Dairy before the heart attack. He lived in dusty country; he grew his crops in volcanic ash. Usually clad in flannel and jeans; when the timing was right, he wore irrigation boots.
Answered everything with pie. Slept with his reading glasses on.
I shaved my head the summer before he died, and he said I looked kinda cute - that was as close as anyone in my family came to paying a compliment on my looks.
My father wasn't talking to me at all at the time.
They sold the farm shortly before I shaved my head.
They moved to the suburbs. It's a common tale.
Farm auctions rip me in half.

I still remember getting the call... it was a few days after Christmas and my younger brother and I were playing in the basement.

It was my uncle, asking for my mother.

We were on the way to florida that afternoon.

Turns out he had a stroke and wasn't doing too well.. but the only thing that I felt was anger at my grandmother for not helping him quickly enough. Granted, I didn't really know the man very well, but he was still my grandpa.

Now it's 4 years later and I miss him like I never did when he was alive. I wish that I hadn't been so.. reluctant to get to know him. But, then again, I was just a teenager.

My mom says that I am a clone of him... We act the same, look the same, have the same ideals. I just hope that I can grow into his image... without having known him.

I had one. Well, technically I had two of course, but one died before I was born. Whats sad is that of the two, the one who died is the one I knew better.

The one who was still alive during my lifetime never really seemed to be completely there. My memories of him seem to consist of him sitting in a chair whenever my family came to visit him and my grandma. He died when I was in second grade, and I don't really feel as if I ever knew him. I wish I did.

My other grandfather, the one that died years before I was born, was cool. I feel as if I know him because of the vast amount of stories about him. He fought in World War II, in Alaska during the brief invasion of the Aleutian Islands. The best thing about him is what he did when my parents got married. My parents wanted to get married in my mother's hometown, but it had no town hall for the reception. So my grandfather built one. It is still the town's hall today. What a way for a father to show love for his daughter.

I never really knew either of my grandfathers, or any of my grandparents for that matter. I hope my children, if I am ever a father, know theirs better than I knew mine.

Anton Provoost. No, he wasn't famous, he wasn't rich. He was my grandfather, and he meant a lot to me.
He meant a lot to me, because I was named after him. I might not share his last name, but I do share his first name, for which I thank my parents. He also means a lot to me because he was the only one I knew who could tell stories about his life, what he's been through before, during and after World War II, that would really interest me.
During the war he had to hide from the Germans, because they would put him in a working camp. He didn't really want to go there, so he hid with some people in the east of The Netherlands. The people who helped him remained his friends up until the day he died, and my grandmother goes to visit them still once a year.
After the war, he worked for the town he lived in, Zoutelande. It's my hometown too. He helped maintain the beaches, to make sure they were clean. Sure, it sometimes could be a bit of a dirty job, but he did it to make sure other people could enjoy them. And in my opinion, that is one of the most noble things you can do.

In 1996, he was diagnosed with cancer. In the months that followed, he his health deteriorated rapidly. During those months, I didn't see him very often, even though he lived just around the corner, a 30 second walk from my house. I didn't went to see him because I wanted to remember him how I've always known him, a big, strong (and bald) guy, but not the sick skinny person that was lying there in that bed.
I went to visit him on my birthday, December 1st. He hardly recognised me, but it made me somewhat happy that he called my name.
Two days later, Tuesday December 3rd 1996, he passed away. He was buried on Saturday.

To this day, I still haven't visited his grave since the day he was buried. I think about him every day, but I haven't had the courage to visit his grave. Perhaps I should do it this year on his birthday.

About three months ago my grandfather died. He was born in 1938, he died homeless, in the back of his pickup truck in July of 2000.
He was a proud man and had been kicked out of his sister's house just a few weeks prior to his death. His body was found two weeks after his death. The news shocked me. I hadn't talked to him in a couple of years, but he was the only grandfather I had ever known.

Yesterday I sat transfixed as my mother went through the collection of photographs, letters and other odds and ends she had inherited. "Gramps" as he was always known to us, was a bit of a packrat. I regret that I never took the time or the effort to get to know him better. Now I must beg my mother for copies of photographs school yearbooks, report cards, letters and newspaper clippings in order to fill this void.

My Grandfather grew up in Humbold County in Northern Califonia. His father was a stern man. He grew up hunting and fishing in the forests and rivers of California. He was a champion archer and an accomplished hunter. He didn't do all that well in school but participated in many activites, playing baseball and basketball as well as swimming. From what I can tell he was quite the ladies man in his time, may photographs of him with attractive young ladies, most containing some message to him from her written on the back:

"If we get back together tonight I hope you will forgive me..."

After graduating high school he joined the Air Force academy. His love of planes is further evidenced by the collection of plans for model aircraft found amogst his possessions. However he flunked out of the academy because he "couldn't land the planes". After this crushing failure he joined the Army, and served during the Korean War. There was a collection of letters written to his mother in the pile. I hope to obtain copies and perhaps node ones of particular interest. Soon after his enlistment he married my grandmother, pictures of him with my grandmother, looking so young, my mother (their first child) in their arms, looking so proud, so young, so athletic. A proud life, the end wasn't fitting to such a man. I just wish I could have said goodbye.

Leland "Gramps" Perrott 1938-2000

My father's father, grandpa, was an Orange Man. Not sectarian, it was more of a cross between a social club and the masons for him. I can remember him marching on the 12 July, his sword out, his slash bright and proud. He had his oath framed on the wall, signed in his own blood. He ran the Londonderry chapters in the 1950s, which may explain the difficulty I had getting government security clearance. I remember how he smelled, old, musty, peppermints and pipe tobacco.

He raised 15 children, with no education, a small farm and a farm house with 3 bedrooms. He saw another 3 children die, 2 from fever, and 1 who fell down a well. He didn't complain. He had around 30 grandchilden, and another 20 great grandchildren. He knew all our names. The government wouldn't let him sign up during the war, he was a farmer, he was necessary. He watched his brother die 2 years after returned from a Japanese internment camp, refusing to eat, as the Japanese would mix the Red Cross parcel drops in with the food, letters, tobacco and medicine. He had his pictures on the wall of his little terraced house.

He died when I was 12. It rained. All 14 of my uncles were there, each taking it in turn to carry the coffin down the road. My father has always had a bad back, he was ran over by a tractor when he was 8. When it was his turn to carry the coffin, I did it. Walking at the front right hand side, my arms high above my head, I was too small to shoulder it. I remember it being light, I guess now my uncles took the weight, but I remember at the time thinking how proud he would be to see me grown up.

When I was a little kid, hard questions that my mom couldn't satisfy and my dad was too busy to were 'Pop-pop questions'. They were almost always science related, generally to do with weather or geography or biology. I'd call him up. He lived with my grandmother, who I wasn't as close to but loved just the same. He always, always knew the answer. Always. His was the first phone number I ever memorized; I called him alot alot alot so it makes sense.

My Poppop is a surrogate parent. I've written about him in more essays than I can count. I have a dad, but he's more like a father to me than anything else. He was always busy, for one, but I can't fault the man. He spent a good deal of time with me...but he never had that openness that Poppop has. When Dad was on call and had to run to the hospital to operate, Poppop was there to answer what the stages of a butterfly were. Or why moss always grows on the north side of trees. Or how to tell compass directions in 15,645 different ways. Or what starfire was made of.

When I was in sixth grade or so, my grandfather bought me a tent for my birthday. We went and camped outside my house, in the backyard, with my little brother. We talked of stars and constellations and beauty and joy. My dad never camped outside with me. I don't think he understood why I'd want to. Even worse, I think he once used to know why, a long time ago, and lost it to the soul-wrecking power of work and time and adulthood and hey, the real-world, where you gotta watch your own back, screw everyone else!

My greatest fear is following in his footsteps.

Now, Dad has grown sullen and withdrawn; the victim of bad luck and a terribly ugly, five-year-long saga of a betrayed business partnership. I wonder if he has PTSD. I don't want him to. He doesn't talk much anymore. Drinks far too much. Sometimes I can see that glimmer of joy that I knew he used to have....but that's just it. Glimmers.

My grandfather has slowed down in his old age. He repeats things; forgets, tells the same stories over and over again. I have a dark, dark suspicion that he has Alzheimer's. I don't want to think about that possibility. I don't call him enough, don't return his calls all the time. Too ack school busy busy busy gotta throw trivial things like relationships and family out the window for IMPORTANT things like getting an A instead of an A- on that chemistry quiz. Or getting a top score in Radiant Silvergun. Priorities, of course.

I think the saddest day of my life was when I realized I was answering my Poppop's questions for him now, and not the other way around.

My parents aren't home yet.

They left to accompany my stubborn brat of a grandmother, rushed to the hospital with Grandpop. He had a low temperature, yes a low temperature, not a high temperature, not a fever, low. Earlier, I walked into the kitchen and mom asked, "what does a low temperature mean?", without context. I asked her what she meant, she said, "low body temperature", as in, the medical sense. All I could think of the symptom was hypothermia or drug overdose.

However, Grandpop is quite dry, and quite sober as well. He does have blood pressure issues, so the low temperature could be very well indicative of death coursing on his heels. I knew he'd been in a bad state these past few days, as grandparents so often are. But why aren't my parents home yet?

Perhaps he is dead. I wouldn't feel sad about that, I'm also so unmoved by death. He just won't be around this Christmas, that's all, I guess. It doesn't matter how much he's given me; he's the only reason I have any bit of intelligence in me. He's the reason I'm writing this, both the inspiration and execution.

He was among the inventors of synthetic rubber, and holds a PhD in philosophy, which I didn't learn about until I saw the diploma in my grandparent's basement this year. They had lots of old books, including one ancient guide book for boys. That guidebook suggests brandy as a remedy for all illnesses and claims that lightening is some sort of "electric liquid". I left the book, in the house my dad grew up in.

Grandpa is my dad's dad, he's the source of my surname, "Shelley". People always call me Shelley, like it's my first name; the number who don't know my first name because of it is astounding. Whenever someone calls my name, will I think of Grandpop, poor, cold Grandpop? Will the be calling out to him, so high on the family tree? In he in a stale, stained hospital bed or one of those big filing cabinets for cadavers?

My parents aren't home yet, I don't know why they aren't home yet; I'm getting nervous and am without means to distract myself. What if he's dead? I'll spend all next week without means of communicating to my mourning parents, my dad will be horribly depressed once again and probably break down, my mom won't try to think about anything and I won't be able to converse with her. They'll make me shave my beard for the funeral, probably because facial hair is considered unsightly by my mom. I won't get my wisdom teeth out on Thursday, as is planned, I won't spend the end of spring break drugged up on painkillers and watching shit movies with throbbing pains of nausea in my stomach. I'll go to school and maybe, if word gets out, nobody will know how interact with me. That's fine; recently I've been fine. I don't know how to interact with me.

I made coffee. I don't want to drink it, I'm not hungry, I'm not thirsty. I want to listen to sappy sad music. And king of sap, Mr. Oberst, agrees:

I need to get lost in something.

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venting..

The ability to "Grandfather" legislation, regulation, or rules of any nature is a powerful tool. When a guideline of any nature is created or modified there is always the question about what to do with the instances under purview that occured prior to its implementation.

One way a rule is "grandfathered" is when it retroactively applies to any instance that occurred in the past. For example, if a rule came out making marijuana legal, there would be a massive battle on how far back and to what extent the new law would apply to people convicted under the previous set of laws. That's why most grandfather clauses have very tight restrictions on how they may be applied.

A "grandfathered" law may also refer to exemption of those violating the rule prior to its inception. For example, when Washington, D.C. raised its drinking age from 18 to 21, people between those ages, who could drink under the old law, were allowed to retain the right to legally consume alcohol under a grandfather clause.

Grand"fa"ther (?), n.

A father's or mother's father; an ancestor in the next degree above the father or mother in lineal ascent.

Grandfather longlegs. Zool. See Daddy longlegs.

 

© Webster 1913.