Another Day

This morning I read The Snows of Kilimanjaro. Reading Hemingway always makes me wonder about what the world was like in the 1920's and 30's and 40's. Just a few weeks ago my brother-in-law's grandfather died and we discussed what life must have been like for him. My grandpa died twenty years ago, and although I spent a lot of time with him in my youth, I only really knew him as an older man. I wish I would have been able to spend time with him when he was twenty or thirty or forty. What was his life like? What did he think of the depression? What did he think of the war? What did he think of everything?

In the summer of 1978 I spent nearly everyday with my grandpa. He would pick me up in the morning and we would do errands for my dad. Sometimes we would go downtown to buy groceries for his stores. Then we would we have to stop at each location to drop off whatever they needed. Once a week we went with our produce man, Freddy, to the farms in Indiana to buy fruits and vegetables. We would head out in a big white van, going from farmer to farmer, filling it up with all kinds of stuff. Boxes of fresh tomatoes and bags of sweet corn and baskets of strawberries and crates of green peppers. There were only two seats in the van so on the way back I would get to sit on a bag of corn in between Freddy and grandpa. It was a long trip for an eight year old but the smile on my face kept me awake the whole time.

My grandpa, and grandma, lived in a big old house in Price Hill. It was where my mother and her sister and brother grew up. My great-grandma lived there too. And apparently a lot of other family members had stayed there through the years. The first floor had a living room with a big glass window in the front. There was a formal dining room and a big kitchen. At the back of the house was a sunroom that spanned its width. The second floor had four bedrooms and the door that led up to the attic. The way I remember it, I could live in that attic today - Chick, dogs, cat, baby and me. The house was all brick and had a huge front porch that wrapped around one side. It had a good sized back-yard. At least it was big enough for my parents wedding reception. And in the very back of the yard was a garden that grandpa used to attend to. I don't really know what he had in that garden, but I know he passed down his green thumb to my mom. I'm still trying to find mine, but I know it's there somewhere.

I have a very vivid memory of upsetting my grandpa once. We were driving in his white Oldsmobile. It must have been late spring or early summer because he had just picked me up from school and we had the windows down. I saw my friend Jeff walking along the sidewalk and I wanted to yell hello to him. I was in the backseat so I leaned forward and yelled out the driver-side window - right next to my grandpa's ear. He looked at me through the rear-view mirror and with a puzzled face asked me why I would yell in his ear like that? I didn't know and I slouched back into my seat, noticing that the whole time my window was down too. If I was just thinking better, I wouldn't have upset my grandpa. Now, whenever someone yells in someone else's ear I think of him. Not because he was upset with me, but because I wish I wouldn't have upset him.

My grandpa died in 1985, one week after my grandma passed. Although it was a difficult time for my family and my mother in particular, it was really best for him. They had been married for over fifty years and he was in poor health. He obviously lived a very full life and I'm glad to have been a small part of it. But I still wish I knew more about him. What kind of cigarettes did he smoke? What was his favorite drink? Where did he go to have that cigarette and drink on nights when he needed to get away? Did he enjoy making sundaes or just eating them? Would he rather play cards or watch a ballgame? How did he live his days?

What did he plant in his garden?