Grandpa and the Toboggan

 

 

I feel like my grandfather only said about 53 words directly to me the whole time I knew him, but I always knew for certain that he loved me so much.  One perfect winter/Christmas memory of him is from when I was about 7 years old, and visiting my grandparents, who lived nearby.  Typically, when I visited my grandparents, I, being an only child, would happily occupy myself on their property in the country in Lake George, New York.  I was a suburban kid, so their “spread” seemed exciting and endless to me, and I could always find fun ways to pass the days. 

This memory had me crashing down their sloping yard on a toboggan.  I kind of remember that the hill in their yard was huge, but I also know that it wasn’t.  Anyway, I remember sliding recklessly fast down the tremendous hill (actually, slowly, and the hill wasn’t tremendous by any calculation) over and over and over, and the horrendous trudging climb back up the hill each time (really neither horrendous nor trudging, I was 7). 

After what seemed like thousands of trips up and down the hill (really, probably 5 trips) I landed at the bottom, and my grandfather pulled into the driveway in his big green truck.  I was always glad to see grandpa, but I had no idea why he was home; I was always lost in time in the country.  He smiled as he walked over to me and said, “ready?”.   When I was 7, I never EVER knew what people meant when they said, “ready?” or pretty much when anyone especially grownups asked me anything. 

So, I said, “yup”.   With that, grandpa grabbed the thick rope on the toboggan and started to run, pulling me down the driveway and onto Middle Road, the country lane that bordered his property.  For a surreal few seconds, gramps trotted ahead of me on the toboggan as I clung-on in utter disbelief.  In my mind, at the time, my grandfather was ancient, and I was amazed that he could run at all, and I was a little concerned that he would drop dead in front of me, although that concern was conflicted by an intense desire to see how far he could take me.   Any concern I had for grandpa confirms what a stupid kid I was; a conclusion to which my readers have probably long since arrived.  In reality, he was then probably only in his early 60s, not far beyond my age now, and he probably felt (and was) virile as ever (as I do and am).   

Anyway, at last, pooped or maybe just hungry for lunch, grandpa pulled me back up into the driveway and walked into the house, without saying another word.  I sat on the toboggan in the driveway, stupefied in the silence of the country, and smiling widely.  I wasn’t sure that the hell had just happened, but I sure knew where I stood with gramps.

France for the Holidays!

If you were going to France for the holidays and one of your kids was just being a total shit and you “accidently” forgot to bring him, but it was totally confusing when you left because you overslept that morning and your stupid niece screwed up counting the kids or whatever, and then you suddenly realized you forgot him after your plane took off, would there be any legal issues, or would you have a solid case?  I mean, we called home when we got there and everything, but the police were kinda like, “sure, okay” or whatever, which seemed kind of like strange to us.

Asking for a friend.

Life Saving Information

When I see a scientist from Europe on a documentary talking about some new discovery based on decades of research that I should put into place immediately to save my life, but the details are all presented in metric measurements, I figure, “Oh well, no way I can extrapolate this shit.  Guess I’ll carry on with my normal sketchy lifestyle and just hope for the best.”

You Want To See My What?

Whether you consider it pretentious or not, on job applications “CV” is sometimes a replacement for the word resume.  CV in this case stands for Curriculum Vitae, which is Latin for “course of one’s life”.  CV is also an abbreviation for cardiovascular.  If an employer asks you for your CV, you may want to clarify whether he wants your resume, or the account of the "course of your life”, which let’s face it, could be messy, or your cardiovascular record.  Posting for a friend (me).

Blame The Pilgrims

Really cool Halloween decorations looks so lame November first, but people leave them up because there are really no good Thanksgiving decorations.  People put up corn stalks and Indian corn and cornucopia displays at the end of September, but it’s mostly because it’s too early for skeletons and zombies; it has nothing to do with Thanksgiving and feels desperate, then.  And so then the world is decorated orange and yellow and brown for a few months, with funny turkey pictures slipped in in mid-November but it’s just seemingly pointless, meaningless.  I know that this will be controversial, but I blame the Pilgrims.  I know that public relations were not a primary consideration back then, but what were they thinking with the big buckles and stupid hats and knickers and big-ass barreled blunderbusses?  They created the least sexy image for anyone to recreate with decorations.  And to be honest, they mostly did without, and sacrificed, and froze and starved, even though the native Americans showed them really good ways to not freeze and starve.  So now here we are, like five hundred years later or whatever, and how can you decorate your house with freakin’ starved and frozen Pilgrims (except by maybe leaving the skeletons up)?  So anyway, yeah, when you’re tired of the corn (which the Pilgrims also stole from the Indians) decorations, go ahead and put up your Christmas trees and lights.  What the hell, I give up.  Happy Thanksgiving and No ‘el, everyone.

Sir What?

I heard a guy excitedly refer to a steak he bought as a “sirLOIN”.  By his putting the emPHAsis on the wrong sylLAble (and thus making the name of the cut of meat sound comically regal as a bonus), I couldn’t be sure whether he was an idiot or pretentious or both. 

Greetings from Awkwardville

Them:     Hi.

Me:        Hi, how are you?

Them:    Good, how are you?

Me:    Good, how are you?

Me to Myself:  WalkawayNOW! WalkawayNOW! WalkawayNOW!!