Personal story, or stories

[Grandpa]

This is fresh. Like, tonight.

This is kinda stupid to explain, but quite a while back, I rearranged landscaping rock by shoveling it under the back deck. This turned out to be a Very Bad Idea, because there was a cold air return to the crawl space that was nestled under the boards of the back deck, and when it rained hard, the water now had no place to go, thanks to this new pile of landscape rock in the way, and a bunch of it (the water) went through the cold air return, which went into the crawl space, and then cascaded down into the finished basement, where we suddenly had the dreaded Water Intrusion (politically correct term for "flood").

I'm no engineer. Who knew that moving rock could do that?

So I then unbolted the deck, shoveled out a bunch of the landscape rock, and it made it better, but we still ended up with Dreaded Water Intrusion one night. Sigh. (And just so you know, "Sigh" doesn't begin to cover the mostly sleepless night and fans and towels and water vac and general PITA factor that results.)

So I had this big ol' tarp which I would sometimes use to cover Grandma's van floor when we made the occasional dump run, and I decided to take the tarp out to the back deck to cover it when weather threatened, and maybe that bad ol' rainwater would run off the tarp and get diverted away from the deck.

All that is a backdrop, or one of them, to tonight.

We just replaced our furnace, which is a whole 'nother story, but it was warm in the house tonight, and we hadn't yet mastered the new smart thermostat. In my old age, my legs can weirdly get hot, and lemme tell you, after watching tonight's chapter of "The Roosevelts: An Intimate History" and FDR's battle with polio, I'm just happy that my legs are as functional as they are.

But I digress.

My legs were hot, and it's our house and our space, so I told Grandma that I was taking off my pants, and it was a pleasant surprise that she didn't object. However, after viewing more "Roosevelt" and a glass of wine later, she looked out and remarked that my tarp had wandered, due to the wind, from the deck to the back yard. She said I ought to take it back to where it belonged.

I said, "I'll do that, but I don't have pants on." She said, "Well, take the dog. There might be raccoons out there."

?????????????

Well, I've been married for four decades, and I've learned to pick my challenges, and this was not one of them. But I wondered about some pervert raccoon who would be focused on an aging human male, without pants, to pick on. I mean, is there some previously unknown species of raccoon out there with an affinity to human bare leg flesh?

So I turned off all the house lights that might shine on and illuminate me to the public, just in case the neighbors would look outside for the entertainment value of an old guy with shirt, boxer briefs, and no pants, although I was pretty sure they would wind up vomiting soon after registering the sight on their neurons. I called the dog, and she followed me out the back porch door, until I picked up the tarp, at which point she was bored out of her skull, and she went back inside, leaving me to the tender mercies of the Raccoons Who Attacked Aged Male Bare Legs.

I got the tarp back where it needed to be. No raccoons. No dog. No neighbors peering out of their windows (as far as I know) to watch me prancing around in shirt, socks, and boxer briefs.

But my heart was in my throat the whole time.

 

[swiftdog2.0]

Beware the Woo Woo Raccoon.........

It is the scientific name for deviant beastial Raccoons.............

 

[mustangclaire]

This is fresh. Like, tonight.

This is kinda stupid to explain, but quite a while back, I rearranged landscaping rock by shoveling it under the back deck. This turned out to be a Very Bad Idea, because there was a cold air return to the crawl space that was nestled under the boards of the back deck, and when it rained hard, the water now had no place to go, thanks to this new pile of landscape rock in the way, and a bunch of it (the water) went through the cold air return, which went into the crawl space, and then cascaded down into the finished basement, where we suddenly had the dreaded Water Intrusion (politically correct term for "flood").

I'm no engineer. Who knew that moving rock could do that?

So I then unbolted the deck, shoveled out a bunch of the landscape rock, and it made it better, but we still ended up with Dreaded Water Intrusion one night. Sigh. (And just so you know, "Sigh" doesn't begin to cover the mostly sleepless night and fans and towels and water vac and general PITA factor that results.)

So I had this big ol' tarp which I would sometimes use to cover Grandma's van floor when we made the occasional dump run, and I decided to take the tarp out to the back deck to cover it when weather threatened, and maybe that bad ol' rainwater would run off the tarp and get diverted away from the deck.

All that is a backdrop, or one of them, to tonight.

We just replaced our furnace, which is a whole 'nother story, but it was warm in the house tonight, and we hadn't yet mastered the new smart thermostat. In my old age, my legs can weirdly get hot, and lemme tell you, after watching tonight's chapter of "The Roosevelts: An Intimate History" and FDR's battle with polio, I'm just happy that my legs are as functional as they are.

But I digress.

My legs were hot, and it's our house and our space, so I told Grandma that I was taking off my pants, and it was a pleasant surprise that she didn't object. However, after viewing more "Roosevelt" and a glass of wine later, she looked out and remarked that my tarp had wandered, due to the wind, from the deck to the back yard. She said I ought to take it back to where it belonged.

I said, "I'll do that, but I don't have pants on." She said, "Well, take the dog. There might be raccoons out there."

?????????????

Well, I've been married for four decades, and I've learned to pick my challenges, and this was not one of them. But I wondered about some pervert raccoon who would be focused on an aging human male, without pants, to pick on. I mean, is there some previously unknown species of raccoon out there with an affinity to human bare leg flesh?

So I turned off all the house lights that might shine on and illuminate me to the public, just in case the neighbors would look outside for the entertainment value of an old guy with shirt, boxer briefs, and no pants, although I was pretty sure they would wind up vomiting soon after registering the sight on their neurons. I called the dog, and she followed me out the back porch door, until I picked up the tarp, at which point she was bored out of her skull, and she went back inside, leaving me to the tender mercies of the Raccoons Who Attacked Aged Male Bare Legs.

I got the tarp back where it needed to be. No raccoons. No dog. No neighbors peering out of their windows (as far as I know) to watch me prancing around in shirt, socks, and boxer briefs.

But my heart was in my throat the whole time.

Another great read Grandpa

 

[Grandpa]

The man whom I called Dad was born at home, to a farming and merchant couple, on the eve of the Great Depression. He was the youngest of six, separated from his older brother by four girls, who doted on him. His parents ran a general store, and when the Depression was in full sway, they kept selling to the local small-town and farm people on credit, in the hopes that things would turn around, and being unable to turn away folks who were in need.

The store went bust, of course, and his parents turned to sharecropping. Dad and his siblings would later tell me, when they spoke of such things, which was not often, that they grew up poor but didn't feel poor. They had food to eat, they had shirts on their back, albeit patched, and when they took the horse cart into town on Saturday, they all had a nickel each to watch a movie.

They were mostly exceptionally smart, not in a book way, although they mostly loved to read, but in a real-world way, being very perceptive of people and quick and creative with their wit. They found it easy to laugh at, and with, each other. Dad went to high school where he got good grades, was good at sports there (not saying much in a rural school of about 60 students), and was popular with the lady classmates. College was out of the question. That was for people with money.

But the military was an option. World War II was over, and the Air Force was a brand-new baby, emerging from the old Army Air Corps. Dad joined, was trained in Morse code, and was a whiz at it. His typing was phenomenal, over 100 words per minute on a manual typewriter. He just had the brain for interpreting letters and words into symbols at high speed.

He was nearing the end of his enlistment when the Korean War started, and his term was extended. He was a little resentful, but on the other hand, he liked his work, he liked his Air Force buddies, and the country needed him. So he let it go. He spent much of the time intercepting Russian signal traffic from postwar Japan, a place that he loved, and he was popular with the ladies there, too, or so he later told me. He said it was his green eyes. I imagine, impishly, that it was the green something.

His enlistment finally did end, and he came back home to his doting sisters and now adoring nieces. But home wasn't quite what he'd expected. He worked, but it really didn't feed his soul. He considered reenlisting in the Air Force. But as it turned out, the lady he was dating at the time, whom he thought was a little too histrionic, a little too controlling, to stick with for very long became pregnant. Back then, there were only two options: You either got married or you ran away to enlist (or in his case, reenlist). He was too conscientious to run off. So he let it go. He got married.

 

[Grandpa]

Getting married wasn't terribly pleasant. His own family took it in stride, probably gave him some grief, but his new wife was a devout if obviously misbehaving Catholic, and her family wasn't approving of her wayward ways or the hastily arranged wedding. They came around, though, taken in by his good-natured ways and high humor.

His wife had less ease adjusting. The baby came, and she was resentful. When I look back on the pictures, she is holding me but never cuddling. She's looking at the camera, and the resentment is in her eyes. She would tell me later that I was a baby who just didn't want to be held, and I developed a theory about that, and it didn't quite fit with her version.

Six weeks later, a hit-and-run driver struck Dad as he was walking across the street in the snow. It threw him into a ditch with a crushed pelvis with his abdomen impaled by the car antenna. He lay in the ditch for a while before anyone found him. He was critical for a couple weeks, then came the slow mend, the follow-up surgeries. He never walked right again, his left leg was permanently atrophied, and he had circulation problems in his lower leg. But he rarely complained. I think he hurt when he walked. Certainly, his limp was noticeable. But he learned to cope with it, to let it go.

The years went by, and his wife, my mom, who had always envisioned herself as being mother to a big Irish (she was half Irish) Catholic family of six kids, had a series of miscarriages before the doctor told her to give it up forever and take birth control. That was the crowning point of her perceived punishment from God for having had premarital sex; she'd gotten pregnant, she couldn't have any more kids, and now she had to take something that her Church didn't want her to.

Increasingly, she acted out more at home. It wasn't helped by my dad's increasing inability to find a job that made him happy enough to stay with. So she got a job, which she also resented, because she wanted to be a housewife, and working took her away from her rightful role in society. It didn't help that I was making his way through puberty and channeled my rebellion into an indifference about school performance. I won the school spelling bee. I'd get 98, 99 percentile nationwide on placement and evaluation tests. Then I'd barely squeak by on grades. (Yeah, I'm that type. Sorry, danie.)

The house became a stew of angst and frustration for my mom. She became more controlling, more demanding. Not always, but it was always at least right under the surface. Dad became more quiet, less communicative, because that was his way of dealing with it. He could have left her, sure. But he was committed to the marital promise he'd made; and he also was stuck in an emotional inertia where it was easier to just stick with an existence he didn't like than to strike out and make his way through her rage for something new. So he listened to her complain and rant. And he let it go.

Things calmed down sometime after I left, so I'll take my share of the blame for the home condition. She didn't take my leaving very well, but it had to happen. Dad understood and let it go.

 

[Grandpa]

The years rolled on. Their son was married now, and he and his wife started popping out grandchildren. Dad loved them all, especially his granddaughter. Mom doted on the eldest boy, and unfortunately much to the exclusion of the other kids. You can only get by with this so much when siblings are close and are trained not to expect special treatment or unequal affection. They all noticed after a while and all resented it, the eldest boy most of all.

It culminated when my mom made an accusation of petty theft against her granddaughter and declared her to be on the unwelcome side. I suspect she thought it would alienate the granddaughter but somehow bring the eldest grandson closer. If that was her plan, it failed catastrophically. You exclude one of us, you exclude us all. The whole lineage became estranged from her, which also meant from her husband.

This one time, Dad could not let it go. Over ensuing months, he pleaded, cajoled, and negotiated, even while she would call me up, scream threats, and then slam down the phone. It was an unpleasant time. But Dad prevailed, and the family gravitated together again. But now a wall would forever block a complete loving relationship between my mom and my kids.

Now in their fifties, both my parents started developing hacking coughs and the obvious onset of emphysema. They'd smoked all their lives. Dad had quit a number of times, but my mom didn't want to, and either through her dismissiveness of his attempts or his own inability to carry through, or both, when it came to the resolution to quit for good, he let it go. It was the noticeable start of a long, slow decline for both of them as, step by step, their bodily structures began to falter and fail.

I sometimes think that this was the time when Dad could have left his wife. Neither one of them were in good shape financially, but at what price comes unhappiness? He could have moved closer to us. He could have seen his beloved grandkids more often. When his successful sister died, he could have enjoyed his share of her inheritance rather than seeing it spent on furniture that his wife wanted. But he had that emotional inertia going. The same mental dynamics that made him look for the easy path with serial jobs also worked to keep him in his unhappy relationship.

It was during this time that he had a big medical event, blocked arteries that took major plumbing repairs. Among other things, he was essentially temporarily eviscerated while the junction of his aorta and femoral arteries was replaced. He told me later he'd never felt so terrible as after that surgery. He said that, in the middle of a drug-induced state "I felt myself just slipping away. Just a little part of me went. Then again. It was painless. Then a little more. And I thought, this isn't so bad. I can just let it happen. I can let it go. But before that happened, I stopped. I decided not to."

My dad wasn't religious. He was probably closer to atheist than anything. But he was a bit of a mystic.

So that was where the declining health took a plunge. My mom would complain to me that she thought he'd had one or more TIAs, and she'd express it with scorn, like it was a character default on his part. But then he had the Real Thing Stroke, and I came down from a conference in the mountains to see him. He revived enough to see me, recognize me, and speak to me, but he quickly went downhill from there, and within a few days was moved to a hospice room.

 

[Grandpa]

My mom told me she wanted to be there when he died. She said he needed her. I, perhaps unfairly (but perhaps not), thought that she wanted to exercise her last bit of control on his way out. She would sit by the bed and say, "Jesus is waiting for you with open arms! Go to him! Go to Jesus!" and I can't say it creeped me out, but it was unsettling, because for me, it translated to, "Just die already!" She was also happy that she'd brought a priest in to give him last rites and she could feel he would die Catholic and saved, but I thought that if Dad realized what was going on, he'd be insulted.

Dad didn't die then, not when she wanted him to. She finally gave up, told him she'd be back, and went home, as did I to my family and office in my town 70 miles away. And then I imagine, turning a little mystic and misty myself, that Dad found his measure of peace and a little last act of rebellion. No one was there with him. Just alone, quiet, hopefully painless, with whatever thoughts remained in his dying brain.

And then he let it go.

 

[Sigmund]

Grandpa

Thank you for sharing.

(((hugs)))

 

[Grandpa]

Grandpa

Thank you for sharing.

(((hugs)))

Thank you, Sigs.

After posting, I was a little taken aback by how bitter I must sound. Sorry if it comes off that way. I meant portray things factually, not bitterly. It more came from the feeling that my dad's adult life presents a rather melancholy story, and one that I've worked to not emulate.

 

[Neesy]

Thank you, Sigs.

After posting, I was a little taken aback by how bitter I must sound. Sorry if it comes off that way. I meant portray things factually, not bitterly. It more came from the feeling that my dad's adult life presents a rather melancholy story, and one that I've worked to not emulate.

You do not sound bitter (at least I do not think so). My parents were similar, only it was just my Mom who smoked like a chimney until her dying day.
Thanks for sharing these stories with us Grandpa.

 

[Sigmund]

Thank you, Sigs.

After posting, I was a little taken aback by how bitter I must sound. Sorry if it comes off that way. I meant portray things factually, not bitterly. It more came from the feeling that my dad's adult life presents a rather melancholy story, and one that I've worked to not emulate.

I didn't *read* or *hear* bitter. I read the reality of the situation. And your father's morals, bravery and resolution.

It was a melancholy story but it spoke about the man he was.

It certainly speaks for how and why you CHOSE to be the man you are.

Peace.

 

[Sigmund]

Good evening.

This thread is awesome. Kick back and get ready to read some cool stories.

You're welcome.

 

[Grandpa]

Good evening.

This thread is awesome. Kick back and get ready to read some cool stories.

You're welcome.

Oh, dearest Sigs, thank you for resurrecting this for the great stories that we all have shared here, and the "mystic chords of memory" (thank you, Abraham Lincoln) for people who are not around now but, we hope, may be again someday.

And at least on post #184, my own "Father's Day" remembrance.

 

[Sigmund]

Oh, dearest Sigs, thank you for resurrecting this for the great stories that we all have shared here, and the "mystic chords of memory" (thank you, Abraham Lincoln) for people who are not around now but, we hope, may be again someday.

And at least on post #184, my own "Father's Day" remembrance.

Hi.

I'm sorta goofy. I don't know where post numbers are. Can you hook me up with post #184 please?

Happy Father's Day, sir.

 

[Grandpa]

Hi.

I'm sorta goofy. I don't know where post numbers are. Can you hook me up with post #184 please?

Happy Father's Day, sir.

It's actually on the very page you wrote this, Sigs. If you look down at the right lower corner of the post, you see "Quote" and "Reply" - and also the number that the post is in.

Personal story, or stories | Page 10 | The StephenKing.com Message Board

And if you click on it, you get the code where you can link it in other places, if you wish.

Happy to help!

 

[Sigmund]

It's actually on the very page you wrote this, Sigs. If you look down at the right lower corner of the post, you see "Quote" and "Reply" - and also the number that the post is in.

Personal story, or stories | Page 10 | The StephenKing.com Message Board

And if you click on it, you get the code where you can link it in other places, if you wish.

Happy to help!

Happy Father's day! >Hug<

Nope. Can't see a post number. I've never been able to see post numbers.

In the lower right corner I see Like Quote Reply That's all. No numbers. (It's me. No problem.)

Have a great week.

EDIT: I have my screen blown up to 200%. I can see all the text but the post number was cut off! I'm so duh.

 

[Grandpa]

Happy Father's day! >Hug<

And hugbacks to you, dear Sigs.

I head out of the country Friday. Maybe that'll get some more stories generated.