Lucky me...

Some people never get the privilege to meet a grandfather. I had two until I was 16 and have been lucky enough to spend almost 30 years with the other. In those years I’ve spent most of it - at least 20 - working right along side him, which makes me smarter than most. (We’ll both tell you that).

Here are just a few of the things I’ve learned from him over the years...

Boys don’t wear dresses...
I now know why grandma didn’t leave grandpa alone with all five grandchildren often. Because when she did, hell usually broke loose. In 1988 Michael Dukakis was running for president against the elder George Bush and we had all settled in to watch a little democratic national convention on television. By the way, it was back in the day of three channels, so there really was no choice. To circumvent boredom the five of us kids decided to make campaign signs - and only because the group was divided. Two of us were republican, the other three democrat. That was probably the first strike.

The second strike came when my oldest cousin decided to take his campaign to the grassroots level - down the street...on a BMX bike...he was wearing a gold dress. He thought it was funny, grandpa wasn’t laughing. He was however more pissed than I can ever remember. I have rarely heard grandpa raise his voice to one of us kids, but he did that night. In fact, the campaigning probably didn’t gain as much attention as grandpa yelling off the porch.

Grandma got home and wanted to know what the fuss was all about, and all grandpa could say was, “Ma, you better call an ambulance.”

“Why?” she asked.

“Because that kids going to need one.”

Grandma will snap...
Grandpa has a knack for arguing, and a bigger knack for being more stubborn than a old mule. Grandma is the exact opposite. However, I have seen her get after him like a wet hen a couple times, but one sticks out above all the others.

Grandma was getting a meal ready and we were helping her in the kitchen. He sauntered in to the kitchen and started belly-aching about something, and then was being a real smart-ass about something or other. The next thing we knew grandma just lost it and turned to him and slapped the side of his face with a spatula full of butter. He was fairly stunned before we all started to laugh, there was also an incident with a spade and irrigating, but that may be for another blog.

Communication is key...
Every four letter word I picked up, I picked up from working with dad and grandpa. It seems the only way you can get their attention is to yell, “Hey God Damn-it,” or “what the @#%$ are you doing?” Grandma was appalled, and as hard as she tried to curb the language - it didn’t work. The older we got the more we worked outside with them, and that just made the language worse.

Thanks to grandpa, I can now carry on decent conversations with mechanics, in bars, anywhere I go.

Non-verbal communication is better...
Grandpa thinks everyone can read minds. Thanks to his lack of verbal communication I can now anticipate people’s needs better than most. Having to reach for sugar or salt, depending on what he had on his plate - made me more aware of my surroundings. It’s all about details.


Sarcasm, just another service to offer...
The worst blow-up I ever witnessed in my 20-something years working on the farm was putting up electric fence. Normally this would have been a simple task, but dad hadn’t slept in about a week and grandpa was in rare form. It was the perfect mix of like personalities to make for one hell of a disaster. Long story short, dad yelled and grandpa was right (like always) and this caused the gloves to come of - and fly right through the air as dad tossed them much like a two-year-old would when told no sugary cereal. Dad stormed off, on foot, down the gravel road and all grandpa did was chuckle and look at me and my sister and say “what the hell’s wrong with him?”

When my sister and I were driving back to the house, Amy quickly reminded me that dad might be in a bad mood and it might not be a good time to, I don’t know, speak. Like the true smart-ass I was brought up to be i simply said “yeah, right, do I look like I have a death wish?”

Everything is fixable...
I was probably 15 when dad let me go completely unsupervised on a tractor. The first time he did, I blew an oil line and ended up with oil spewing every which way. I was so worried I was going to get yelled at, but grandpa just said. “It’s fixable. It’s just a little oil line.”

It may have made me feel better at the time, but I’m not sure he felt good about a broken oil line, and ten gallons of oil (premium John Deere oil) dripping off the green paint. That stuff isn’t cheap.

It can all be smoothed out...
I can’t follow directions. I think that is also something I picked up from grandpa, because sometimes he doesn’t follow them either. That being said, it was no surprise that I failed to lift the disc going over the terraces. To my defense, I thought I was lifting - but the timing was completely off and I was literally flattening them down with every pass. Dad had left me, and grandpa checked on me and it was a good thing. He had to climb in the tractor cab and fix the terrace debacle.

“Dad’s going to be pissed,” I said.

“Na, he’s done stupid stuff too,” grandpa answered.