Kenders' Musings

This is perhaps the hardest thing I have ever written.

My dear grampa, the man that would come home from work and let me have a sip of his beer, (to which I always made a face at), the man that taught me about engineering and gardening, Love and Honor, and gave me a love of politics and debate, has passed away.

He was 88.

His health had been deteriorating for awhile, and his organs shutting down, but when placed in a hospital two weeks before he died, he threw a fit, threatening to call a cab and damn anyone that stood in his way, for all he wanted was to go home.

He knew he was dying, and he wanted to die at home.

My grandfather faced death the same way he faced life. Head on, chin up and with an honesty that was rare these days. He called a spade a spade, and even with his organs shutting down, his eyesight gone in one eye and very dim in another, paid close attention to what was happening in this world, loving nothing more than a lively "debate" (read; argument) after watching O'Reilly.

He quit drinking years ago, but the day before he died he asked for a beer, drinking half of it, and then falling asleep in the sundrenched yard on his scooter.

He was born in Vickburg Mississippi on Christmas Day in 1916, and grew up in Tennessee.

He was a master carpenter and once built a boat from scrap lumber, which he sold for a very handsome profit.

When I was very young, he took a vacuum motor from a broken vacuum, fixed it, reversed the flow and screwed on a handle and placed a flexible piece of tubing with a drain spout on the damned thing and used it as a leaf blower.

He was the King of Scrounge, (something that caused Gramma no end of fits), and at the hardware store on the corner down the street from where he lived when I was young, they very quickly learned to throw nothing out until Mr. Bools came down to see what was truly junk, and what was something just waiting to be turned into something else.

He built me a table when I was about three. I still have that table, and have always treasured it.

Sunday, that table became priceless.

Growing up with Grampa was an experience, and watching him grow old was an adventure. He was a notorious, yet mostly harmless, dirty old man, and he would flirt shamelessly with the nurses that came to take care of my Gramma before she passed. Once, Gramma complained about his flirting, to which he replied, "Well, I like women, if i didn't I wouldn't have married you now would I?"

My grandfather was a construction worker when I was young, and he was tanned whereever the sun hit him. He had a tan so deep I once asked my Gramma why she married a black man. It was so deep in fact that it carried to his dying day.

In WW2 he served in the Navy, and narrowly escaped a courts martial for saying that Roosevelt was an idiot when he heard that Roosevelt was dead. Luckily Truman had been sworn in and Roosevelt was no longer Commander in Chief. Grampa tended to be opinionated and outspoken, (yes, that is where I get some of it), but would run circles around you with his logic. His arguments were bullet proof.

It was Grampa that first told me, many years ago, that going to church no more made one religious than going to the garage made one a car. Of course, he also told me "marry a girl with small hands, boy, it'll make yer pecker look bigger."

He will be buried on Thursday, next to Gramma, with a full Honor guard, piper included.

God Speed Grampa.

Your doodlebug.