grandpa jay

my grandpa jay was the only grandpa i ever got to meet, but he was awesome. he's my father's dad, so that takes him back a few steps because that side of the family is known for being mean and poopy (sucks that his wife, my *ahem* grandmother, is probably going to live for approximately, ever).

speaking of his wife, she's always had trouble getting into cars. when we would all go together somewhere he would drive and she would always say, "don't start the car jay!" he would start the car and say back, "hurry up dorth, i'm starting the car!" (she goes by her middle name and she hates being called dorthy which is her first name). she would say, "don't move yet! don't move yet!" and he would rev the engine and turn around and smile mischievously at us in the back seat. we would try to stifle our giggles.

when we were little we used to go to montana every summer, all summer, to hang out at flathead lake with the grandparents and (apparently) give my parents a break. they have a house that's up a steep hill from the lake complete with a dock and a newfoundland, smokey (we contributed a texas labrador to the mix). we got to swim in frigid lake water, pick cherries and drive the green machine to the lake and back and then to the lake and then back and to the lake again. we used to find huge logs to float on and i spent hours looking for special lake rocks which i took home to do absolutely nothing with except weigh my bag down (thank goodness they didn't have a limit then).

we spent a lot of time outside and among other wildlife, there are bears in montana. grandpa jay said "you gotta let them know you're coming!" and we would look up to him, fear in our eyes, "there are really bears here?" and he would say, "you gotta make lots of noise so you don't startle a bear! woooh!" he would yell really loudly, "wooh!" with this huge smile on his face, "wooh!" one summer my sister was walking with him a half mile from the house and they saw a bear. she was so lucky. she went around the rest of the day doing bear impressions.

then we would play games every night. my grandpa's favorite card game was gin rummy. he was the master gin rummy player. i don't know if you've ever played it, but you're supposed match up cards to at least three of a kind or a flush or whatever and then we would put ours on the table. we would think we were winning because he had sooo many cards (the object is to get rid of them). then! my grandpa jay would smack down his whole hand all matched up and throw his last one in the discard. we would sit back in shock and admiration. the master had won once again. it took us awhile, but we figured out what his plan was and would try to do the same thing, but he was the master. nobody could execute it as elegantly.

another thing i remember about montana is getting to drive the trailblazer. grandpa jay let my brother start driving to get ice cream when he was fourteen. then, when he got his license we got to all go alone. we had to listen to the rules first. we were all strapped into our seats ready to go and grandpa said, "now do you all know about the beanos?" we said no. "you don't know the beanos? are you sure?" he said very seriously. nope, we didn't know what he was talking about. "there will be no horsing around! there will be no distracting the driver! there will be no silly business!" we had all dissolved into laughter at this point.

one of his favorite phrases was "it'll make your hair curly." this could be in relationship to swimming in the lake, to eating a carrot, or going through some life change. this was his response to many things. i'd say, "but i don't want to sleep upstairs with bats." he would say back, "c'mon, it'll be fine and make your hair curly." well my hair is now really curly when at the time it was pretty straight (we'll never know if it was the bats or the severe interruption in my hair cycle because of surgery).

when he died in '97 i was devastated. it was hard because it happened suddenly. he was fine and then he was not. my dad went to see him in the hospital and then he was gone. we took him and his son my uncle tommy, who i never met,* back to michigan to bury. his dieing wishes, to be back in michigan and to have his son finally buried. i saw my father almost cry for the first time in my life and got to see where my grandma and grandpa met and grew up. i saw the cabin he was born in and the farm his family still owns. it was a shame that he wasn't there to show us around, we were just seeing it all for the first time without him there. i met one of his brothers as well. it was an unpleasant experience because they looked so much alike and yet, he was gone.

at one point in my life, i thought my dad might turn out to be like my grandpa, and wondered if my grandpa had ever been like my dad or if my brother would become my dad. i realized that my dad was who he was because of my grandma and would never be as funny and comfortable with life as my grandpa. i still miss him and hope that my kids will have somewhere magic to go and experience someone beating them at gin, teaching their dog to pull off their socks at night, or yelling "wooh!" at bears.

*my uncle tommy had died about twenty years beforehand and was waiting, cremated, in a box in the basement... which is a whole other story about how weird my grandmother is... now i have to do a post about her! and smokey! and possibly my dad.