40 Years Later

Today is the 40th anniversary of my Little Grandpa's death, and I chose to honor his memory all day. I know that my perception of him is certainly not 100% accurate - after all, what adult presents their whole authentic self to a nine year old? - but the man he showed me is a man that shapes my life right up to the here and now. 

It being a Sunday, I went to Mass (with my mother-in-law today), and said a prayer for him. Then I met YaYa and her boyfriend Alex at the cemetery to pay our respects. YaYa had purchased and brought along a bouquet of flowers at my request. 

I said some prayers over the grave, introduced Alex to his potential future Great-Grandfather in law, and broke up a little bit. 40 years and it still stings. Man. Whodathunkit? 

Tacky it may be, but there's actually a Poke stop/gym at the cemetery, and they spent a minute or two showing me how to use my app. 

From there, I went home for a bit. Then I grabbed Smiley and headed over to a rummage sale run by Alex's parents, more to pay my respects and support them then anything, although I picked up a neat JFK PT boat lapel pin that YaYa had tipped me off too (kudos to me for raising a kid who knows enough history to have picked it out of the group), and a copy of a NY Times from 9/11. 

Later, after Lisa went to work, I dropped Junie off at her friend Lucy's house for a picnic with most of the Core Four.  If I haven't mentioned it, it was a blisteringly hot day (in the 90's) from start to finish, and just moving around was enough to make me thankful for air conditioning. So the idea of a *picnic*  . .  yeah, no thanks. 

Since I was already on the north side I went and refilled the little library at Junie's school 

Then, partly by design, partly by proximity, I moseyed down to the Milwaukee animal shelter where I was introduced to two kitties, a one eyed and very afraid Cleveland, and this fine specimen of canine genetics, all 15 pounds of him lol, ridiculously named Snoopy . . . 

I wanted him. Not gonna lie. But I sent text after text to the family and got no response, even after sitting at the shelter for 45 minutes. So I left. 

And when I got home Lisa texted that I should get him. Naturally. 

Alas, when I called the shelter was closing soon and would not adopt him out, and is closed for Labor Day tomorrow. 

Swell. 

Anyway, about an hour later Junie called for a pickup and I trotted back out. She had a great time, and I greatly enjoyed laughing at her carrying all her picnic stuff back to our car LOL 

So, a pretty varied day, but overall a good one, and (I think) an honorable way to honor Little Grandpa. 

:)

Miss You Grandpa

 Happy 40th Grandpa's Day!

An Old Family Pic

 

I can't vouch for the location, but it appears to be a basement Christmas or New Years party, possibly in the northern room of my Grandparent's basement (by the time I saw it, decades later, it was full of storage and long affected by disuse and moisture - it certainly didn't look like THIS. But the wainscot seems familiar, as does the radio). 

That's my Mom dancing with her Dad, and my Grandma dancing with someone that's probably one of my Mom's cousins. 

By the age of my Mom, I'd place this in the early 1960's. 

Today would have been my Little Grandpa's 100th birthday.  RIP

Firestorm #17 and the Day my Grandpa Died

On the day my grandpa died in 1983, a family member - their identity long lost to memory - bought a handful of comic books and brought them to our house in a thoughtful effort to distract me from my grief. Yesterday, thumbing through the dollar bin at the comic store with Junie,  this cover triggered a long lost memory. As I flipped through the book, the memory was confirmed; this issue of Firestorm was one of the books from that awful day. I'm happy to own a copy again - and under much better circumstances.

update: (from my sister Katie)  

Auntie Dolores had her daughters bring comic books and food from the open pantry they owned for us. Auntie Dolores watched us while mom and grandma went to take care of grandpa’s needs.

The Gay Spot

A 1952 postcard of The Gay Spot, a restaurant on 14th and Arthur where both my Grandparent's worked. It's also, IIRC, the scene of the only fistfight my Little Grandpa had during their marriage. Someone insulted his father, and Grandpa threw a punch in his defense.

So you know . . .

On January 15th, 1982, my maternal grandparents bought a new washing machine from Sears. Model 110.83170110 with serial # C15101623, it broke down four days before Christmas in 1985 but was repaired under a service plan that expired 12-12-86. Just thought you'd like to know.

30 Years Gone

30 years ago,on the night of 9/2/83, I crawled into bed beside my Grandpa. I woke up the next morning and discovered that he'd died next to me in the middle of the night. 

Without question, it was one of the most awful - and pivotal - days of my young life. It was never about the manner of his death, but about losing HIM. In many ways his loss shaped who I was to become.

It's hard to believe that today marks THREE decades since that morning, but time has a habit of marching on and leaving both the good and the bad in the distance.

 RIP Little Grandpa, and thanks for the time we did have together!

Junie breaks the iconic popsicle house

In the week before his death my Grandpa and I began to build a house out of popsicle sticks; I wrote of this in "Little Grandpa". I've had that house for thirty years. Today I found it smashed and half-missing on the floor of Lauren's room. To say I am upset is an understatement, but OTOH, the existence of that book makes the loss less biting, as the physical mementos are less important in its wake. But still . . . . damn it.

We Remember

70 years ago today my maternal grandparent's were on a date at the Riverside Theater. The movie was stopped, the lights came on, and an announcement was made that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor. They both knew my Great Uncle Leo (grandma's brother) was stationed there that morning. He was part of the crew of the USS Vestal, moored alongside the Arizona. Luckily, he survived, but of course 2000 Americans did not. To all the men at Pearl that day, thank you for your service. We'll always remember.

Happy Birthday Grandpa

Today my maternal Grandfather would have turned 90. RIP Grandpa.

Grandpa 25 years on

Today marks a quarter century to the day since my maternal Grandpa's death.

My Little Grandpa and I were very close. He was as near to a matinee idol/hero/everything as a little boy could find, and I loved him very much. On the evening of Friday September 2nd, 1983 I returned from playing in the park to find him taking some aspirin. He would later retire to bed early, citing a stomach ache. Sometime later I joined him, cuddling up next to him and exchanging good nights.

I woke up Saturday morning to my Mother's panic screaming and a cold corpse beside me.

It sounds pretty traumatic, but the death itself was far less troubling than the loss of the man himself. Bluntly, it f*ed me up for awhile and surely stands as one of the pivotal days of my life.

But, frankly, I'm weary of talking about it. It is,despite my mind's refusal to accept the fact, a full 25 years since that horrible day. I'm a grown man, and whatever demons lingered about were  exorcised when I wrote a book about Grandpa six years ago. At this point, whining about it falls under the category of 'quasi-victim/martyr pityfest', and I just can't cotton to that.

 

[I think the anniversary is all the more poignant because it comes only three days after his house was unwillingly passed from my family's hands.What eerie timing.]

But 25 years . .the hours and minutes pass so slowly, the months and years so quickly. It just seems so unbelievable, like I could turnaround and be a nine year old boy in my Grandparent's kitchen, instead of a father of four. Far more often then I'll ever admit it feels like I'm playing dress-up and I'll wake up again to ride shotgun with the man on some errand or another.

I wish I'd gone to visit his grave today, but I was watching my kids and my sister's, and truth be told it did not occur to me until nightfall.

Rest in peace Grandpa. I love you.

* * *

The day is not solely devoted to bad memories. Today is also the 20th birthday of my cousin E. Happy Birthday man!

A conversation with a neighbor

The baby was up a lot last night, but at least she finally seems to have kicked the flu.

* * *

I mentioned yesterday that someone was knocking on my front door. Well, one visit was my mother-in-law, another was a neighbor.

After some hiccups last spring when we moved in (we were reported to the city for a parking violation and for running a 'day care' - sorry for breeding but it isn't a daycare, they're all mine) we've become friendly with quite a few folks on the block.

The family to our north has shoveled my walk and I've returned the favor, the guy two doors down has visited and given the kids some DVD's ('DVD Guy!' they call him), and I'm on conversational terms with some houses across the alley.

The guy to the south is still the guy to the south, but not wanting to be my buddy isn't a sin. At least not in this state.

[irrelevant aside: DVD guy has a bad habit of knocking whenever I'm sans shirt, man boobs visible to the world.  To point out how much this bothers me Lisa often says, half seriously, that she's confident I'm not having an affair because it would tend to include taking my shirt off in front of someone new.]

Anyhow, while selling Girl Scout cookies with YaYa Lisa meets some old guy down the street and winds up sitting in his kitchen talking to him for half an hour.

It turns out he knew my Great-grandparents (the prior owners of our house) and much of my family, including my maternal grandfather.

In 2002, for my Grandmother's 79th birthday,  I wrote a book about that Grandfather entitled Little Grandpa. I self published a few copies at a local print shop and submitted it to a few places. Rejections across the board, although one editor was kind enough to include a note saying it had potential but didn't meet their needs.

And so it stood for six years.

Back to the present. Lisa dispatches YaYa home for my copy of the book, no questions asked. She then borrows the guy my book, not realizing it is the only remaining copy I have my hands on, and that the digital files were corrupted in the intervening years.

I was . . . annoyed.

But true to her prediction he returned it and was one of the visitors yesterday. We went to his house and talked for awhile in his kitchen.

"So what did you think of the book?" Lisa said.

"To be honest, it's full of inconsistencies," he says.

Well. Okay then.

Apparently he was friends with my Grandfather's stepbrother and was bothered by his absence in the book, and some factual errors about who lived where in the city and who married when, etc.

"Well, he says right at the start that it's the remembrances of a 9 year old boy. It was never intended as a history book," Lisa said.

"Sure, sure," he says.

Ok, enough sour grapes. Whatever my opinion of his review, he was still a friend to a hero of mine, a hero I last saw in 1983.

Turns out they were both lathers and worked for my Great-Grandfather Iggy. They'd meet him on 13th and Lincoln each morning to get their assignments, often accompanied by their daily pay in a cash envelope. They'd take turns driving to the job site.

Considered the equivalent of the starting lineup, my Grandpa and my neighbor would often start an empty room and put up the ceiling and top layer of the walls.

He was quick to point out that my grandpa was a friendly and well-liked man, right in line with my memories, but also quick to say that he wouldn't 'take guff from anyone' and had a mouth when need be.

Most of the time I remember him bowing to my Grandmother's wishes, but come to think of it some kids once tossed a brick at his car and danged if he didn't u-bang and go after them, arthritis or no arthritis.

He also said Iggy was a fair and well-liked man. That's good to hear. I don't hear much about my Great-Grandfather.

So I suppose I'll go visit the neighbor again, this time with recorder in hand, and maybe fix some of those 'inconsistencies'.

* * * *

Lacking a better place to put it, if you are in Milwaukee and a Time Warner customer, channel 201 is a great nostaligic station, playing endless old TV shows interrupted only by commercials of the era.

May I say two things: One, The Mary Tyler Moore Show still holds up as a well-written and funny sitcom nearly forty years later (but c'mon - Murray wasn't gay?) and two, in her previous stint in The Dick Van Dyke Show . . well, thank God for capris. No wonder she was popular. ;)

Oh, and #532 is non-stop PBS Kids. Smiley loves it.

 

Excerpt from Little Grandpa August 17th

It seems an opportune time to reproduce part of the book I wrote about my relationship with my Grandfather.  Written for my Grandmother's 79th birthday this chapter, appropriately enough, was originally entitled 'August 17th" . . .

In the middle of August 1983, little less than three weeks before he died, my Grandpa and I took a road trip together.

It was my idea. I had asked him if we could spend the day together, take in some local sites, and maybe take a short drive. He agreed. So the night before we left I took a map and circled a half dozen cities without any concept of distance or travel time. I showed the map to him as he sat watching TV in the living room.

“You’re crazy!” he said.

We went anyway.

We pulled the car out of the garage at 8 o’clock and drove down to the Mitchell Park Horticultural Conservatory – better known as the Domes. It was our first stop for the very practical reason that admission was free on that day, provided you arrived early enough.

There are three glass domes, greenhouses really, that stand a few stories high. Inside, each of the domes features a different botanical landscape: one desert, one tropical, and one much like our Wisconsin scenery.

We took our time walking through the Domes, spending a lot of time in the desert landscape. My Dad had worked there in his teens and we’d visited only a few weeks before, so I tried to impress Grandpa by pointing out what plant was what. Nevermind the little identification cards stuck right next to each plant – it was important he hear it from me.

Ironically, what I remember most from that stop is that Grandpa had to use the restroom. I was stuck waiting for him outside the stall, keeping an eye on the cane he draped over the side.

As we were leaving the parking lot Grandpa pointed to a building across the street. “See that?” he asked. “I helped build that in the fifties. It used to be an insurance building, but now they just rent out the office space.” Having a Grandpa that could point out a building and say, “I made this” made me proud, and bumped him up even further in my eyes.

We took 27th Street up to Forest Home Avenue, passing Paul’s Diner along the way. Paul’s was a tiny hamburger stand that had been on that corner since the invention of ground beef, and I’m sure Grandpa had downed a meal or two there. “You hungry? We can stop for some burgers,” he said.

This became one of those silly moments that take on too much importance in life. I was hungry, and I wanted to stop for a burger. In fact, I thought it would be neat to eat at the old diner, but . . . somewhere inside I got nervous. I had never eaten there before. What if the burgers were nasty? What if the place was dirty? I shook my head no.

Obviously, far from an important decision, but it bugged me for years. What if we had stopped? Would the day have lasted just that much longer, instead of ending when it did? Would I have another memory to treasure forever? How could I have been so scared?

Well, we didn’t stop, and I doubt that if we had it would have altered the course of human events. And I did eventually eat at the diner – with my wife, who happened to have waitressed there in her teens.

Our next stop was the Experimental Aircraft Association museum out on Hwy 100. Later that year the EAA would move the museum to their home in Oshkosh, where it became a mammoth display of aircraft that stretched for hangar after hangar. When it was in Franklin t was just a single large building packed to the rafters with flight memorabilia.

Here Grandpa was in his element. Most of the planes were WWII vintage, and he’d been trained, as an anti-aircraft gunner, to identify all of them by sight. We didn’t have to get close to the plaques on their sides – he’d stop ten paces away and say, “That’s a Zero. It was made by Mitsubishi, the same guys that make cars now,” or “That’s a P-40 Mustang. That John Wayne movie, The Flying Tigers? That’s what they flew, but they painted shark teeth on the nose because the Chinese thought that was lucky.”

There was a replica of Fat Man, the atom bomb that dropped on Japan, and actual pieces of the Hindenburg. We’d just got done watching a movie on the dirigible, and in one of the display photos was a passenger describing the even. In the movie he was played by the French guy from Hogan’s Heroes.

Hanging from the ceiling was a model of Lindbergh’s plane, and again, Grandpa, consciously or not, combined cinema and history to teach me something. “You remember that Jimmy Stewart movie, Spirit of St. Louis? Can you believe he flew across the ocean in that thing?”

Amelia Earheart was mentioned too, and lo and behold, we’d seen a movie about her too. (God Bless the Late Late Show on Channel 6 – how do history teachers manage without it nowadays?)

Grandpa stopped and talked to someone with the same love for the aircraft, and picked up a souvenir card that featured an optical illusion that spelled out EAA. I still have the card, but I have more trouble spotting the letters nowadays.

Afterwards Grandpa took me to the one hamburger joint I’ve never turned down: McDonald’s.

It was a beautiful restaurant compared to the one we frequented, with crisp white paint and new tile. It was five minutes from home but seemed a world away, just me and my Grandpa on the open road. It was marvelous.

The restaurant was packed for the lunch hour, but we found a seat. I had my standard hamburger, milk, and fries and Grandpa had a large coffee (his cream and sugar milkshake) accompanied by an oar-shaped stirrer that’s permanently burned into my memory.

To my left sat a family. Mom, Dad, infant child – and Japanese exchange student. It was his first day in America, and the family wanted to treat him to some genuine Americana. They would ask him a question, he would feign understanding, and then they’d all laugh and ask another one. This went on for the entire meal.

On my right was another family, identical but minus the exchange student. They were trying to feed their crying child an ice cream cone, but the kid just wasn‘t having it.

Midway through our meal the infant on the right had enough, cocked his arm, and launched the cone in the air. It landed upside down on the floor by Grandpa. All three tables were quiet for a moment. Then the Japanese student spoke.

“Ahhhh, ice cream!”

We all burst out laughing.

From there we hit the open road. We went to St. Francis, Cudahy, New Berlin, and from there we ventured outside the county. It was more or less what I’d planned: a haphazard route that went nowhere in particular.

We found ourselves driving past Lake Donoon. “When I was a kid your age we’d go swimming in that lake,” he said. I looked out at the vacation homes strangling the lake and wondered aloud how he could have afforded it.

“Oh, it was different then. This was fifty years ago, even before the war. You could just come up here and swim with your buddies. You didn’t have to worry about who owned what back then. It was just a lake, and we were kids. We didn’t know any better.”
We drove for an hour, maybe two, but nothing else sticks in my mind. I just had fun riding shotgun with Grandpa, watching the Wisconsin countryside go by in the last great summer of my youth.

We had one more scheduled stop, the Boerner Botanical Gardens in Whitnall Park. If you forget the fancy name, the Gardens were just what they advertised – a huge public flower garden run by the County.

By this time Grandpa’s legs were hurting him, but he still followed me up and down the path. In truth, the Garden’s always bored me a little, but he seemed to get a kick out of them. He always had more of a green thumb than I did.

As we were winding down our tour he stopped and talked at length with one of the County gardeners. The subject was, of course, plants, but the guy did interrupt to scold me for scraping my shoes on the gravel. “That’ll ruin your shoes son”. Yeah, well buy me a new pair or mind your business old man.

Grandpa apparently missed this proof of the man’s ignorance and continued talking to him. He loved a type of plant that, to my eyes, looked like it had been splattered with a florescent paint. I’ll give the guy this much – he seemed to give Grandpa some good tips on how to make the plant flourish.

By then it was nearing late afternoon, and Grandpa treated me to an early supper at Denny’s. He stopped and bought a paper on the way in – it would wind up tucked beneath his recliner by morning – and we sat down to eat.

When dinner was over Grandpa graciously allowed me to get desert. Remembering the boy at McDonald’s, I ordered an ice cream sundae. “One scoop or two?” the waitress asked. Two, I said.

Gramps waited for her to leave and then jokingly kidded me for emptying his wallet with the other scoop. “She asked me! I thought the second scoop was the same price!” I said. Gramps laughed and told me to relax, that he could certainly afford another scoop for the Piper Man.

We came home in late afternoon, and Grandpa stretched out his tired legs on the couch. We watched Laverne and Shirley, then MASH. It was the episode where a undetonated bomb lands in the camp, and Hawkeye and Trapper have to defuse it before it’s too late. They approached the bomb carrying mattresses over their shoulders.

“What are the mattresses for?” I asked.

“In case the bomb explodes,” he explained.

I thought for a minute. “So, what do they expect the mattress to do, break their fall?” I replied sarcastically.

Grandpa roared with laughter, and I felt proud to have made him laugh.

A few weeks later I started the fourth grade, and for the first and last time in my academic career I actually had to explain what I did over my summer vacation. I chose Grandpa’s Day as my theme - our day deserved a title, just like any other day you want to celebrate each year. On a sheet of drawing paper I made a collage of our day, start to finish. It was pretty darn good, earning me one of the few A’s I’d receive in that troubled year.

A week later, Grandpa was dead.

It’s a tradition, at least in my family, to include with the deceased mementos of his or her life. Notes from a loved one, pictures, and perhaps a small cherished object. Among the notes and pictures placed inside Grandpa’s suit was that art project. I wanted him to remember, as I always will, how much fun we had that day, and how special it was to me.

For a few years I celebrated Grandpa’s Day by recreating the spirit, if not the actual itinerary, of our trip. In 1984 Mom took me out; in 1985 Grandma and I went to see Back to the Future and ate at a pizza parlor. Then, as my memory began to blur, I pushed the day aside. I’m not even sure of the exact date anymore - it’s either the 16th or 17th - and it really doesn’t matter.

Midway through each August I think of Grandpa. Sometimes I visit his grave, other times I treat my wife to a special dinner out. In 2001 my wife’s baby shower was scheduled for Grandpa’s Day, and in return Gramps successfully petitioned God to turn off the rain long enough for the picnic to be a success.

When my daughter is older I will ask her to climb in the car one hot summer day and take a look at the lake where her Great-Grandpa once swam in the heat of an August sun. God willing, decades from now her son will do the same.

And each summer, from now until the end, I will think of that day we spent together. Even if it was a crazy idea.

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Grandpa's Day August 17th, 2005

Twenty-two years ago today, my maternal grandfather took me on a road trip. Within a few weeks he was dead, and on the anniversary of the trip I celebrate the spirit of the day by spending the day with a loved one.

Today, the whole family made the trip.

Our first stop was the cemetary, where we introduced Parker to his great-Grandpa and placed wildflowers (grown and cut by the Mrs.) on the grave. Yes, I know, kinda odd to be smiling at a gravesite, and I look like awful to boot, but there ya go . .

We then headed over to Betty Brinn's Children's Museum on the lakefront. YaYa stated a preference for the Art Musuem down the road, but the words "I already have an annual family pass and I'm broke" decided the day. We listened to a story, hunted for seashells, did an art project, watched a Curious George movie, and camped out in the hands-on exhibit area for a bit.

Then it was on to the local firefighter's museum - which was closed for the day.

This follows a long string of failures - YaYa's stated desire to be a "firefighter, and a doctor and maybe a mommy" had elicited a promise from me to see a firehouse over the summer. Unfortuantely, we've been foiled at every turn. After the latest letdown I made a stop at a firehouse that had its garage door open. My only idea was to get within sight of the fire engines, but one of the firefighters came out and agreed to a tour. Success!

YaYa was taken aboard the firetruck, given a chance to 'drive' the rig and try on a mask, and was taken through an ambulance and given a tour of the firehouse itself. She was awed and strangely quiet - until she got back in the car!

From there we ran errands to the mall and post office, then picked up fast food and had a picnic in the shadow of Miller Park, where a little league game was being played on the field where County Stadium once stood. The kids played on the neigboring playset for a bit, and then it was on to home.

Not a bad way to spend any day, but truly a great way to spend Grandpa's Day.

 

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The Excerpt from Little Grandpa January 15th

Last night the new version of Battlestar Galactica premiered. It was one of my favorites growing up, and it brought to mind the many hours I spent with my Grandfather in front of the TV.

In 2002 I wrote a book about my Grandpa as a birthday present for my grandmother. It followed the same format as Papa My Father by Leo Buscaglia , and I had a half dozen copies printed and bound and gave them away to family members. All of them. In fact, right now I have neither a copy of the book nor the disks that contain the writing.

Stupid.

But, I do have a few scattered chapters saved on my computer. What follows is an excerpt from the chapter on TV.

You’ll note it’s not the tightest or most sophisticated style, but a lot of that is by design. These were nostalgic recollections of my childhood written for my grandmother. I didn’t feel the need to turn it into a Mickey Spillane piece, and I’m glad I didn’t.

When I was in college they forced you to read a lot of Neal Postman. Postman, for those of you blessed enough to have avoided his work, is a critic of television who’s made a career writing book after book that boils down to television is bad. A neo-Luddite, Postman seems to pretty much hate anything created after the wheel.

In Postman’s world the Baby Boomers and their spawn have thrown away centuries of progress in favor of Cheers and The Brady Bunch. I disagree on a number of levels. In fact, I can prove him wrong about that last point right here: if TV destroyed progress, then don’t blame the Boomers, blame the Greatest Generation.

Boomers didn’t watch Your Show of Shows, The Honeymooners, or Burns and Allen. They didn’t fall in love with Lucy, or dump radio in favor of the glowing box in the living room. Along with D-Day and Midway, that honor belongs to Grandpa’s generation.

Grandpa certainly embraced the boob tube. No couch potato, he still spent many an hour camped out on his recliner in prime time. He even went so far as to buy a radio that only tuned in audio from local television stations - including, proudly, the UHF channels! A forerunner of handheld TV’s, it was his way of making sure he didn’t miss a minute of his favorite shows.

What did we watch together? The list is a veritable encyclopedia of the pre-MTV world. There was the Ken Howard’s The White Shadow, with basketball players crooning Motown together in the shower (which come to think of it, is just plain odd). The Fugitive in reruns, MASH, and hometown favorites Happy Days and Laverne and Shirley.

We watched Knight Rider and before that the Dukes of Hazard. [Grandpa stopped watching when Schneider and Wopat went on strike, but I preferred the scabs. Small wonder I wound up Republican.]

He watched The A-Team, even though we both knew it was crud (4000 shots per episode with zero fatalities), Roger Moore’s The Saint, Kung Fu (whose flashbacks confused the heck out of me) and Robert Conrad in The Wild Wild West. And even though I’m sure it bored him, he also watched every episode of the time-travel series Voyager with me.

There were slews of police dramas: Starsky and Hutch, Kojak, The Blue Knight, The Rockford Files, and pretty much anything that featured cops and robbers.

In fact, he liked shows about television too, becoming one of the first fans of Entertainment Tonight. It became a staple of his nightly viewing. . .

. . . Grandpa wasn’t very good at screening what we watched. His viewing choices gave me so many nightmares I may have personally inspired the television rating system.

Besides the relatively mild discomfort of Shogun, we watched a cheap TV movie where a retarded man is mistakenly blamed for a murder. He’s chased into a field, forced into a scarecrow costume, and killed. Scarecrows scare me to this day.

Then there was the Kung Fu movie where the hero is captured, tortured, and brutally killed. I had to leave the room midway through the scene. When I came back Grandpa scolded me, saying he died like a man, refusing to talk even when they burned through to his heart.

Charming.

Or the movie Beau Geste, where a man is buried up to his neck in sand and executed by the glaring desert sun.

Yuck.

Now obviously, Grandpa was the furthest thing from a sadist or I wouldn’t be writing this. Even so, I don’t think he knew how sensitive I was. I must have been sensitive - 1980’s lineup was far milder than the shows my nephew watches today. And some stuff I doubt he could have predicted would bother me. The Man in the Iron Mask? You mean they put a mask on him and never let him take it off? Ever?? Nightmare for Danny.

Geesh. . . .

Critical as I may be of some of Grandpa’s choices, he was just as hard on us. We loved Three’s Company. Grandpa called it worthless poorly done fluff, and in retrospect he’s right. But it was funny. One time we were watching an episode where Jack is posing as a Doctor to impress his Grandfather. Grandpa walked in, looked at the TV, and unloaded his opinion. Fine. Well, as the episode continued we heard a small chuckle from the recliner, then another, and finely a full laugh. Don’t think I didn’t let Grandpa hear about that one.

. . . he and I took in many a Saturday Late Late Show on Channel 6. "Late Late" was a misnomer. I think they started at 10:30, still late for a kid my age but what the heck - Sunday wasn’t a school day and church wasn’t until Noon.

We watched The Poseidon Adventure, Walking Tall, Westworld, and B movies about tarantulas and Canadian Mounties. One of my favorites was a movie about two mercenaries who wound up with a UN task force in Africa as a cover to steal some jewels.

One night we stayed up extra late and watched a Cary Grant movie. It was a pretty bad flick. In it he was a British officer in the Napoleonic wars, trying his best to deliver a large cannon to the Spanish resistance. The cannon is what caught my interest, so we kept watching. As we sat there we gorged ourselves on apple pies from Kohl’s Food Stores, finishing off a couple before we hit the sack. By morning I was sick to my stomach, and I wouldn’t touch apple pie again for years. Or watch that movie.

For all the movies he watched on TV, I don’t remember he and Grandma heading out to the cinema very often. I know they did back when they were dating, but in my lifetime the only one I know they saw for sure was On Golden Pond, Henry Fonda’s grand exit from the screen.

The reason I mention this is that Grandpa swore he saw Star Wars in the theater. This was a vital selling point for me, because I was a huge fan of everything Star Wars. Still, I could never quite believe him, because although he had the main characters down, the finer points of the movie escaped him. This casual knowledge led me to believe a) he knew the story from playing with me and fibbed for effect or b) he saw a similar sci-fi flick around the same time and mistook the two. I still vote for the latter. He seemed to know a lot about the awful Disney film The Black Hole, even buying metrading cards and a Little Golden book about it.

Grandpa also consented to watch cartoons with me. He liked Popeye, which must be a generational thing because I thought it was stupid and violent. We did, however, share a fondness for Warner Brothers cartoons. While I liked the wisecracking Bugs Bunny, he preferred the more cerebral Road Runner. In this, we strongly disagreed, as to this day the Road Runner and Wile E. bore me to tears. Along with his favorite color being brown - which I still can’t fathom - the schism over Warner Brothers was as close as I came to holding him in contempt.

Television is not my favorite appliance - in fact, hard as it is to believe for most people, as of 2002 I still don’t have cable or satellite. But those early years with Grandpa ensured that I also don’t hold the boob tube accountable for all that’s wrong with the world. Even if the show in front of you is slop there’s a chance for lasting memories with friends and family. Especially if you’re lucky enough to share the couch with a Grandpa like mine.