Edward

I recently received an unexpected gift in the mail. Inside the package was my Grandfather's hat - the actual hat that he wore. I recognized the hat right away and I immediately put it up to my nose to see if I could smell him. I did smell some manly sweat but I learned it might have been from my nephews who wore it when they played in the yard. I decided to honor my Grandfather by giving the hat to another nephew who loves trains. Since this is a railroad hat, it only seemed fitting. Receiving and giving this railroad hat has triggered some memories of my Grandfather. He was a hardworking man. He decorated his hat and the ceiling of his cars with union pins. When I knew him he always had maroon, manual transmission cars. He was not a smooth driver. As a child I would rock back and forth in the seat as he went from one gear to the next. The back seats in those sedans were huge compared to the cars I ride in now or maybe it only seems that way because I was smaller then. The seats were black and slippery and I would try hard not to slide around. He drove so jerkily that a child could slide right off the seat and onto the floor. We didn't have seat belts then. I was lucky to live right next door to Grandpa. He enjoyed driving. He would take his family on car rides on Sunday after church and they would drive in one direction or another until they turned around and came back home, often with no destination in mind. He always had black hair. Grandpa said he had black hair because he worked in the sewers. I'm not sure what that had to do with the color of his hair but he did dig ditches for a living to supplement his farming. He helped dig the ditch in our yard when my parents hooked up to city water or sewer. I don't think he ever made much money but he had enough set aside for Grandma to live comfortably. He had arthritis and he limped. He walked better after a hip replacement. The arthritis in his feet was relieved a little bit if he kept his shoes tied very tight. If he felt good he whistled. If he was having a painful day there was no whistling. He could whistle a song without pause, whistling on the inhale as well as the exhale. He usually whistled hymns. Like me he was very allergic to poison ivy. He got really sick once because he burned the poison ivy with some other brush and inhaled the smoke. He had apple trees and many rows of raspberries. He worked in the garden. Behind the barn he had a huge manure pile that he used to compost his garden. When I was a child he had cow and he would milk the cow. He staked the cow to a post on the hill behind our back yard. One year he had two goats - Billy and Nancy. He usually had a shepard dog named Shep. Once Shep died he'd get another dog just like it and name it Shep too. I heard he was super strict with his children but I didn't know about that because he wasn't strict with me. Once a rabid skunk was skulking around the house. The skunk infected some kittens he had in the yard. I saw the mother cat take her babies out into the field to keep them safe from the skunk but to no avail. Grandpa had to kill the kittens because they were rabid. I guess he clubbed them to death. I heard he felt bad that I rode by the house on my bike and saw him club those kittens. I actually didn't notice but was touched my his concern for my feelings. He liked flowers but preferred they stay out in the garden. He didn't like to see the flowers cut and brought in the house. He was very proud of his trees. He planted a lot of trees in his yard. He gave me 10 onion sets once. I planted them in soup cans. He offered to rototill my garden and he thought he was being very funny when he said that. He had a huge rototiller with giant tines in the front and an engine like a small tractor. The handle bars could be offset so the driver didn't have to walk ankle deep in the tilled soil. He had a brick house with a white barn, an outhouse, several sheds and a windmill that brought up water from a well. The garage was right near the well house. At that time he had a grape arbor and I thought the grape arbor was a fine place to play because it was cool and shady and lots of birds came to visit. The bedroom he shared with Grandma was separated from the other bedroom on the main floor by an upright piano. The stairs going to the second story were triangular in shape and curved around a corner. The lower level had a sand floor and he kept crocks of sauerkraut down there with the canned goods. A nearly flat door led from the porch to the cellar - much like the one Dorothy went down in the Wizard of Oz to get away from the twister. When you lifted up the door you could walk down some stairs. Later the brick house was replaced with a rambler. Grandpa had two teeth and he had amblyopia (lazy eye). When he drank a glass of water, one of his eyes would open really wide and I would freak out at the sight of it. He died of prostate cancer at a hospice. I went to visit him. We could only visit a couple times a week. The hospice seemed very nice with tall ceilings and gauzy curtains for privacy. They seemed to take very good care of him there. I went with Grandma to visit. While she talked I held his hand. He looked up at her and said, "Susie is holding my hand." I was embarrassed but he only smiled. That was the last time I saw him.