Honestly, I hardly knew my grandpa (mom’s side). Either he was not around most of while I was growing up, or we were not around when he was growing old. I’m not sure how that happened or why, but it’s too bad. He always seemed neat when we did see him, but I don’t know. I never really knew any of my grandparents actually, which I will always regret, because it means I lack a certain sense of history and legacy, and I can definitely feel its absence.
It was strange to see him at the wakes (more than one, will come back to that). Catholics like the open casket wakes usually. He was dressed in his deacon garment. Uh, a deacon basically is just below rank of a priest. He is allowed to marry, and allowed to perform certain aspects of the Mass and Sacraments, but not all (I’ll find out more about that sometime). He became a deacon after his wife Claire died in 1975. Being born in 1980, I never met her at all. She looks really awesome, based on the pictures I’ve seen of her.
Oh right, so the embalming made him look strange. The way his face was, the way his jaw rested. It seemed all wrong, based on what I remembered of him as a living breathing person.
Besides being a deacon, my grandpa worked for something like 42 years cutting cloth at a company called David Clark. Supposedly, the work he did in some form at some point involves space-suits. I don’t really know in what depth or regard though. Besides that, he served in the army in WWII in the Pacific Theatre, while they were doing some of that nasty island hopping. My sister’s husband Paul, a history buff, said that one of the islands they liberated, Tinian, later became home to the airfield that the Enola Gay took off from to drop the A-bombs on Japan.
My grandpa had a huge dusty old house in Worcester. Apparently, he unfortunately signed it over to pay for medical bills at some point, and it’s most likely going to be lost from the family, without any compensation. Which sucks, cause it’s a cool old house, even though its totally gone to shit on the outside.
Another thing I remember with my grandpa is playing Rummy 500 on his sticky black kitchen table, and drinking cups of soda from his ancient refrigerator, which was a novelty, because my parents didn’t keep soda in their refrigerator. I also remember writing some story about my grandpa in like first grade or something about how he made spacesuits, and that I liked it when he made spaghetti and meatballs.
- END -
ASSOCIATED CONTENT @TMBCHR (Auto-Generated)
- Bye bye
- Bishops and things
- Paranormal Grandpa!
- That Gun in the New York Museum Belongs to Me
- Roman Room Memory Trick
