When I went off to college, I had a habit of not having a filter and sometimes I just told it like it was. My friend pointed this out to me and sometimes had diarrhea of the mouth. I proudly said, “I learned that from my grandpa.” And if you knew my grandfather for more than a minute you knew he never hesitated to let you know what he thought. He didn’t sugar coat things and I’m going to continue his tradition today. I have a couple of memories I would like to share.
As I was driving here I started recollecting memories of “papa” as I can always remember us grandkids calling him. He and I eating onions from the garden, or stealing grandma’s jam cookies. He always had a garden full of everything you could imagine tomatoes, corn, strawberries, you name it if grew in an Illinois garden he tried to grow it.
​One thing I can always say is Grandpa tried tirelessly to keep things organized. His garage was always laid out. He could never find anything but he always had it somewhere put up. Grandma and grandpa spent a lot of time just rocking on the front porch. I think if I saw one more fishing show I was going to fall over from boredom and I think grandma would too.
​ Grandpa loved life. He loved to laugh and kid, but hated the door open. I know all of us can still hear him saying, “shut the damn door!” He became a real comedian in his last few years. In his last few weeks I was walking down the hallway and I met him and his walker on the way to the bathroom. I told him he needed a honker on that walker since he almost ran me over, without missing a beat, he let a fart rip and proudly exclaimed, “there’s your honker”.
That’s another thing about grandpa that I will remember his sense of humor and as grandma can attest too, he could almost fart on command and blame it on the frogs. He hated dogs, except for Brady Lewis! He loved what he considered his antifreeze, either a hi-ball, Paps Blue Ribbon or Miller High Life.
​ I learned some things from my grandfather. My earliest memory included Grandpa, Jason and I going fishing. We loaded up “Old Betsy” his blue granada. We drove down to the Bait Shop and got some earth worms and crickets then headed for the Salem Reservoir. We were probably six or seven years old. Now I couldn’t stand the thought of picking up the crickets and I can distinctly remember grandpa hollering out, “oh you sissy let me show you how it’s done.” He said whoever caught the most fish would get a smoothie from Wendy’s. Secretly, that was his excuse to get him a smoothie.
Now my grandfather was from a different era than me and we all had our disagreements but as I’ve gotten older I realized he showed us love just in his own unique way. My grandfather taught me how to fish, gave me the courage to bait my own hook and taught me how to stand up for myself, because of him if I’m ever blessed with kids of my own, I’ll be able to help them bait their own hook. Thank you papa for all the memories and I love ya buddy.