Sunday, October 31, 2010

I love cantankerous, old men


I love old men. Men with spunk. The men who wouldn't have dreamed of crying at twenty or thirty, but now cry when they think of their lives and their fading memories. Men who lived through WWII, Korea and so on.

I loved my grandpa. He was THE cantankerous old man. He used to get into fights over perceived slights. He's what was used to be called a Hot Head and now it's just called an Old Shit. He died a couple of years ago.

One of my favorite memories....

I lived in Albuquerque, NM while I attended UNM. Sometimes the college life would get too hectic. Just... too much. I would retreat to my grandparents house for the weekend. I would call and ask if I could come over and they would never say no. I would sit with them and listen their stories and then go out for burger and fries at Lotaburger. Late at night I would stay in the kitchen smoking mine or Nana's cig's, drink iced tea and watch AMC. That was my get away.

Any-who....my grandpa had a hate relationship with people that walked their dogs. They used to let their dogs poop in his yard. He would run out and yell at them. He really did have a lovely yard with native grasses and Aspens. One day he asked me to come over and help him install a dog repeller. It was a motion sensored alarm that would emit a loud pitch that only dogs could hear. It was to keep them off his yard. My job was to dig the hole for the post and he was attaching the sensor to a 2x4 and installing the batteries. I was still digging when I heard a horrible sound. Oh MY God, it freaking hurt. I called over to him and asked if he had turned it on. He said yes and I yelled for him to turn it off. He did and then turned the switch back on. It freaking hurt. So I yelled for him to turn it off. He gave me a look and then read the instructions. He told me that "only a certain percent of people can...." and then he turned it on again!!!

"Turn the damn thing off!" I yelled.

"You can really hear that?" he asked.

"YES!! I can!" I replied.

"Huh...." he kind of shrugged and then said "How about now?" and turned it on again.

"Grandpa!"

"What? I just wanted to see if you could really hear it."

"I promise you, I can hear it."

He did it about four more times. Intermittently, of course. He just had to be sure that I could really hear the damn thing. That was my grandpa for you. Hard as a rock to be a Marine in WWII and soft enough to let me crash at his house when I needed to get away.

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