Granddad struggled with retirement. For twenty-two and a half years he’d owned and operated the only service station with a mechanic on duty, twenty-four hours a day on the two hundred mile stretch of interstate between Texarkana and Dallas. He’d done is bit and finally sold out. I think he was glad to be free of the hard work of being a service station owner. However, he wasn’t fine with the lack of social stimulation. Granddad was, perhaps more than any of the men and women of his generation in my family, gregarious. He missed conversation. He missed people.
Grandma, an introvert who was happy to remain in her bedroom reading trashy novels, eating cherry flavored cough drops, and smoking Pall Mall cigarettes, was a wonderful grandma who I loved, but offered nothing like the conversation and social outlet that Granddad longed for.
As such, everyday, without fail, Granddad loaded up in his beautiful 1977 model, Chrysler Cordoba. It was white with gold velour seats, alas, there was no Corinthian leather. It was, nevertheless, a pleasure to ride in and was an automobile that Granddad loved.
I enjoyed taking turns with my brothers spending nights with Granddad and Grandma. They were so kind to us but, unlike Uncle Carl, who was glad to see all of us each and every weekend, Granddad and Grandma could only take us on one at a time.
“Put your shoes and socks on, son.” Granddad always called me, “son.” We need to run into town.” As he did so, he extinguished the last remaining nub of an unfiltered Camel cigarette that he’d just used to light a fresh one. Granddad was a chain smoker.
It was not until I was 25 years old that I lived in a house with proper air conditioning. One of the real treats of spending time with Granddad and Grandma was one that many of us, me included, now take entirely for granted, air conditioning. They lived in red brick, ranch style home and liked it to be very cool in the hot East Texas summers. Stepping outside, from the refrigerated inside of my grandparent’s well insulated and air conditioned home, into the stark reality of summer in, Beautiful was always an experience. It was the experience of being restored to reality as one stepped from the carefully controlled environment inside to the wildly hot and humid truth that lay without.
The air, even in the shade offered by the porch was hot. Stepping off the porch and out of the shade was hotter still. Walking across the lawn meant stepping upon much too dry Bermuda grass that crunched along the way. Crunch, crunch, crunch, with each step. Granddad, long tired of mowing or of even bothering to hire anyone to cut his grass, had taken to keeping three sheep. A friendly, if tiny, flock of ewes that kept his grass well mowed but who were less inclined to also eat the weeds. For that Granddad would either need goats or need to manage the weeds himself. Not being a man who wished to keep goats and being neither inclined to manage the weeds, Granddad did what many of us do. He settled. It was enough for him to know the grass was managed and to accept that in his yard, just as in life, there were simply going to be a few weeds.
Surrounding Granddad’s and Grandma’s yard was a four foot tall chain-link fence. It kept the dog and the sheep in and helped the dog dissuade the coyotes from troubling the ewes. At the chain-link gate the too dry Bermuda grass transitioned to the white rock that composed the driveway.
Grabbing hold of the metal door latch on Granddad’s splendid Chrysler Cordoba, burned the skin. Thankfully, when he bought the car he upgraded to the gold velour seats that were far superior in terms of comfort to the black vinyl of his old Plymouth Fury III. One could at least sit in the car without being burned by the very seats upon which one sat. Despite that happy blessing, the car was still as hot as an oven. Had we bothered to put on seat belts, the metal housing of both the male and female ends of the latches would have been painful to the touch in that heat but that was before what my old folks would later refer to as the, “tyranny of seat belt laws.”
To hear the rest of this episode, click on the link above!
Much Love,
Hank
You’ve Been Hanked!
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