Sunday, January 12, 2003
" i wish i'd just die . . it'd be better than settin here suf'rin and pissin on mehself . "
- grandpa stetzer
. . .
my grandfather , ninety six years old , was recently struck with pneumonia and hospitalized .
my father and i went to visit him .
he had never seemed small to me before .
in my mind he epitomized everything a man of his era should be : strong and wily with dirt under his fingernails and a pipe clamped between his yellow teeth . he cracked walnuts with a salt shaker and got up at six each morning to make coffee . he listened to agricultural prices each day at eleven on a radio with aluminum foil on the antenna and firmly believed in the siesta , even though he would never call it that . he grew roses and muskmelons and dill and burned waste paper . he had a shed with a boat and kittens in it . he let me blow out the matches after lighting his pipe . he didn't waste water . he repaired airplanes during world war two , and met my grandmother at a dance .
and now time has extracted that all , wrapped it carefully in tissue paper and laid it away in that proverbial cedar chest .
i guess i never knew he was old until today .
posted by emily oi! at 9:22:00 PM
0 comments
" i wish i'd just die . . it'd be better than settin here suf'rin and pissin on mehself . "
. . .
my grandfather , ninety six years old , was recently struck with pneumonia and hospitalized .
my father and i went to visit him .
he had never seemed small to me before .
in my mind he epitomized everything a man of his era should be : strong and wily with dirt under his fingernails and a pipe clamped between his yellow teeth . he cracked walnuts with a salt shaker and got up at six each morning to make coffee . he listened to agricultural prices each day at eleven on a radio with aluminum foil on the antenna and firmly believed in the siesta , even though he would never call it that . he grew roses and muskmelons and dill and burned waste paper . he had a shed with a boat and kittens in it . he let me blow out the matches after lighting his pipe . he didn't waste water . he repaired airplanes during world war two , and met my grandmother at a dance .
and now time has extracted that all , wrapped it carefully in tissue paper and laid it away in that proverbial cedar chest .
i guess i never knew he was old until today .
posted by emily oi! at 9:22:00 PM
0 comments
