Granddad Bob and Granny Alice were married a long time, decades – a life time. They loved each other. They must have to stay together because they really didn’t seem like each other very much. Don’t get me wrong. They made it work and I really admire them for it! Frankly, a whole lot of people could learn from their example.
It wasn’t easy for them. During the day, they occupied themselves with very different tasks. Sometimes they shared morning or mid-day meals, though often they did not. If company was over they usually took supper together. When the day’s labors were finished she relaxed in the bedroom to read or watch television. He relaxed in the front room to do the same.
Each had their own domains. His was his shop were he welded, did other kinds of work, and worked on hobbies he enjoyed. Hers was the house, particularly the kitchen and the yard where she liked to garden.
The front room was common ground. Both loved horses and riding so the barn was also common ground. There wasn’t a lot of other common ground.
Granddad and Granny did family dinners really well. Granny would always make a big pot of cornbread dressing, a variety of pies, trays of things like olives, pickles, and cheeses, and other tasty things.
Granddad always made a salad. He made it the way he liked it, lettuce, tomato, celery, and onion, all very finely chopped. I don’t know what kind of dressing he used or if he made his own. I wish I did. It was a very good salad.
Granddad built a huge smoker that he liked to use. There was almost always a smoked ham or turkey, as well as smoked venison or beef. The food was abundant and delicious.
We didn’t begin our meals with prayers at Granddad and Granny’s home. Conversation was usually fraught and cautious as they had little patience with each other. I think we mostly tried to keep it light during the meal.
Those meals were always good. Both he and she worked hard to provide truly delicious food, the kind of food, prepared in such a way that not everyone has had an opportunity to enjoy. When the meals were over there were always leftovers, enough to eat the next day and the day after. The kinds of leftovers everyone was glad to eat again and again.
When the meal was at an end, depending on the season, the family might retire to the front room to watch a ballgame. At Christmas, we gathered there to exchange and open gifts.
We received separate gifts from Granddad and Granny. She always gave us boys a knitted hat, a bag of underwear, a bag of socks, and once we were eleven or so, a bottle of cologne – always Stetson or Chaps.
When the gift giving was just about finished Granddad had everyone line up in front of his recliner where he handed out folding money. Sometimes there were silver dollars, quarters, or dimes.
Granny always opened all her presents along with everyone else. No matter what Granddad was given, he’d set it behind his recliner unopened. It wasn’t until I was nearly grown that I ever saw Granddad actually open his gifts.
I remember being moved, truly moved when I was sixteen. That Christmas, after the gift giving was over, Granddad sought me out.
“Hank? Hank?,” he found me in the kitchen. “There you are, Hank! Is this from you?”
In his hand was a cassette tape.
Granddad was a gifted violinist who liked to play Western Swing. For years he’d been popular at house parties all over Beautiful, East Texas. In later years, he spent time playing alone and with others in his shop and in the house depending on the weather and time of year.
I worked as a waiter at Chris’s Café five evenings a week. That year, I wanted to do something special for Granddad but just didn’t know what it might be. For the life of me, I couldn’t quite pull my various ideas together. On a particular evening, I made a trip in my Oldsmobile to Hastings – a music store there on the edge Beautiful where I found a tape of violin music that I hoped he would enjoy. It wasn’t Western Swing, I didn’t have the musical sophistication then to understand what that was then. No, it was classical violin.
I’d brought it home, wrapped it, wrote his name on it, and put it under the tree when we arrived at Granddad and Granny’s home Christmas morning. I assumed he would place it behind his recliner as was his custom but hoped he might, at some later time open it.
I never thought he would actually open it while I was still there at their home. Never mind comment on it.
He stood there in the kitchen holding the tape in his hand. “Yes sir,” I said.
Granddad smiled in what appeared to be genuine pleasure. “Thank you, Hank. I really appreciate this.”
My face flushed with embarrassed pleasure. The best I could manage was, “Thanks Granddad, um, you’re welcome.”
I was floored, truly astonished, when I heard classical violin music playing in the front room just a few minutes later. He’d put the cassette tape into his tape player there by his chair and was actually listening to it.
As I said, I was moved and had to step outside.
Typically, when the meal was finished, if there was no ballgame on, and we’d finished with gift giving at Christmas time, Granddad exited the house and went out to his shop.
Granny remained in the house.
Usually the ladies would visit inside, at least for a while. The men, if Granddad could tolerate them would go to his shop to visit with him.
The grand kids were encouraged to play outside which we always did until we were hungry again at which point we again descended upon the leftovers until satisfied and once again went out to play until it was either dark or time to go home.
As we got a little older we spent time fishing or talking among ourselves. It was not until we were much, much older that we were permitted to remain among the grown people for any length of time.
Very often, while still little, us boys were invited to stay the night or even several nights. This invitation always came from Granny. I know that Granddad loved us but he had little time for children. I don’t fault him many men struggle with the noise and nonsense that comes with having kids around.
Granny wasn’t great with girls. This observation is not meanness on my part. It just the truth. She just didn’t like girls very much.
However, she was much better with little boys!
I have such sweet memories of time spent with her.
When I was two, she and I would sit together at her kitchen table there in Beautiful. She was a coffee drinker. As a devout Latter-day Saint, I am not a coffee drinker. That said, in those days, at just two years old, I didn’t know that.
Granny always poured a little coffee sweetened with sugar into a saucer to cool for my benefit. Once it sat a while and was tolerable, I helped myself.
Together we also enjoyed butter and jalapeno sandwiches. These were a delicacy at Granny’s table. One that was in no wise approved of by my parents.
Eating those wonderful butter and jalapeno sandwiches, washed down with saucers full of cooled coffee, Granny and I smiled, laughed, and truly enjoyed those moments that were just for us.
When I was just a little older, and after all the other grown people were gone, I sometimes made my way out to Granddad’s shop. Usually, I found him welding, black-smithing, or fiddling. I learned that if I remained quiet and didn’t bother Granddad, he would permit me to observe for a while. Sometimes, he even indulged me in just a little conversation.
Memories of butter and jalapeno sandwiches washed down with illicit saucers of cooled coffee with Granny in her kitchen and usually awkward but kind conversation with Granddad out in his shop remain with me and are precious. Treasured memories like priceless heirlooms kept hidden in safe places, wrapped in soft protective cloths, shared on occasion with those we hope will remember after we’ve gone.
I have a photograph of Granddad and Granny, the only photograph I have of them together. Its in our parlor on a place of honor, prominent among other pictures similarly beloved by our family.
They were newly married and very young. She was but fifteen. He was not much older. They were in the company of friends that I don’t recognize. She was a real beauty and he a handsome young man. They were smiling, laughing, obviously enjoying themselves.
I know that they loved each other. I saw it. I heard it in their voices from time to time. They didn’t always like each other. I am not convinced that they often liked each other. None of that detracts from the truth that they loved each other.
Granddad and Granny loved each other and all of us enough to figure out how to make their marriage work when perhaps no one else could have or would have. They did so at a time when divorce was entirely permissible and frankly encouraged.
How did they do it? Why did they do it? They didn’t have to. I suspect there were times, many times, that they probably didn’t want to.
But they did. Granddad and Granny persevered in-spite of everything. They endured to the very end. I find that I can’t help but love, respect, and admire them all the more for it!
Today, Dearest Love and I are Granddad and Granny. Those aren’t the nicknames we use but that doesn’t matter. It is our turn to be the family’s old folks.
I am grateful that our marriage is happy.
None of our grand-babies live close by. I worry that they won’t have the kinds of memories of us when they are grown and we are gone that I have of my old folks.
Perhaps in the end, none of that matter as much as, that the babies are healthy, safe, happy, well-loved, and know it when they are old enough to understand.
I hope that these stories will be preserved in a way that will make it possible for them to have and enjoy long after Dearest Love and I are gone. Maybe in this, there will be a legacy for them not unlike that which I have benefited from.
Papaw loves you kids.
Much Love,
Hank
You’ve Been Hanked
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