dinner with gramps, part 1

I have something to be extremely grateful for: Uncle Greg and Aunt Milene have traveled to her native Brazil for a couple weeks. For me, this has turned out to be a great opportunity. See, Greg has a long-standing Friday date with my grandpa; that's his night to pick Grandpa up from work and give him a ride home, with a stop for dinner along the way. So with Greg out of the country, I get to fill in the schedule. It is always a treat to give Grandpa a ride, because I love spending time with him, being able to hear his stories (which are invariably fascinating), and being able to do something for him, however small, after a lifetime of him being there for everyone else. (I should say here that my grandpa's vision has declined to the point where he can't drive, so his village of children and grandchildren make sure he gets anywhere he needs to go, including to and from work each day.)

Anyway, Greg is gone for three Fridays, and I have three boys, so each week, I am bringing one boy with me. This way, the boys get some special time with their great-grandpa, and Grandpa gets to see how wonderful the boys are when there's nobody around to fight with. (Don't feel bad for the other two; they get to stay home and cook a fun dinner with their dad.) Yesterday was the first Friday, so it was Liam's turn.

During dinner, Grandpa told Liam all about the lost art of shoe shining. You should have seen Liam's face ("That's a thing? Really? No, you're making that up!"). He told us how there used to be a shoe shine area in the back of the sporting goods store downtown, and that one of the two brothers who ran it went on to become our town's mayor, so everyone's favorite joke was how they got their shoes shined by the mayor. He also told us that there used to be four gas stations at the main intersection in town (there are two now), and that each one of them did a brisk business. He knew all the owners, and they all made a decent living despite the market saturation. There was a fifth station, a Texaco I think, located slightly off of that intersection (where the County Building is now, if you are familiar with Plymouth), very near to St. Michael School, so after school, Grandpa and his friends would go hang around there, and sometimes the owner would let them pump the gas for the cars that came in (this was, of course, back in the days of full-service gas). We talked about how he once caught a very big fish, big enough that he got his picture taken, proudly holding it up in both hands, but that he only went ice fishing once (sitting on a bucket and freezing was not his idea of fun). Ditto for fly-fishing; apparently it's no fun to stand around in your waders, braced against a current, and your arms get really sore from all the casting. We agreed that the only worthwhile fishing is done from the deck of a pontoon with a cooler full of icy beverages nearby.

Liam was relatively quiet during dinner, but he did tell Grandpa that he wanted to play baseball again this year, which is news to us. I was thinking that his quiet meant that he wasn't really having a good time, but it turns out he was just listening. Once we got home, he made a point of telling me how much fun it was and that he hopes to have the chance to do it again.

I don't have a picture of the big fish, but I do have a picture of my grandpa with his dad, Grandpa Jeff, circa 1940. See the way he's looking up at him? That's exactly the way my boys look at Grandpa when he talks.