Grampa's Birthday
Some years I do my standard Veterans Day rant but I'm not this year. I think Veterans Day doesn't exist where I live and work - I haven't seen or heard any mention of it locally. Sucks. We have three veterans in our office but no acknowledgment of them. (Wait, there was some mention of it - because the courts were all closed. One thing about being a government employee - there's no shortage of days off!)
Anyway, today is my paternal grandfather's birthday. He died in 1973 (the day before Halloween - known as Devil's Night in Michigan, where we lived - no significance to that, just thought I'd throw that in), when I was 10; if he were alive today, he'd be 109. He's probably glad not to have to be 109! Grampa - Herbert Henry, known as Bert or HH - was born in 1900 in Nottingham, England. He emigrated to Michigan in the spring of 1920, while still 19. Never saw his parents again, in fact, didn't return to England for a visit until 1953. He turned 18 on Armistice Day and never was in the military. (His two-years-older brother William - Bill - was in the Army in WWI.) Grampa never lost his accent and I only ever saw him wear either workpants with a white button-down shirt or a suit. Always grey, I think. He never left the house, or at least the property, without his hat. He smoked and he liked overripe bananas. Black ones. The only time I ever spent the night at his house by myself, he cooked Dinty Moore Beef Stew for dinner. Grampa was left-handed but was forced to switch to the right hand at school. He wrote with his right hand, drew with his left, and painted with either. He was a housepainter - my oldest cousin, who used to work for him in the summers, says he could draw a perfectly straight line along the length of a wall with no ruler. Grampa was not a sentimental man but he wrote at least one poem. Though a Christian, he was not a church-goer when I knew him, though he attended regularly when my dad and his siblings were growing up. Except Christmas and Easter - he said he would give up his seat on those days to one of those people that never darkened a church door except on those two holidays. There was a small hill in the back yard at his house and my sisters and I had so much fun rolling down it. Grampa's house was where I watched one of the Apollo rockets lift off.
This is one of the ways I remember Grampa best, in his workshop in the garage. Besides being a painter (and an artist and occasional poet), he could build things. He built the built-in bookshelves and corner shelves in Aunt Lizzie's house and a hutch we had for a long time. When I see this photo, I can smell the paint and woodshavings in the garage. I used to love to play with the vise bolted to his workbench, twirling the handle back and forth, clamping my own hand in it, then looking at the pattern it left on my skin. (Ok, so I could be a little odd. Who wasn't?) There was an old, rather beat-up roll-top desk in the garage that my dad inherited and gave to me. That desk has moved across the country and back! I still have it, though currently it's in another garage, waiting till I move to a place with a space for it.
So happy Grampa's Birthday everyone!
(And seriously - to all our veterans - thank you.)
Anyway, today is my paternal grandfather's birthday. He died in 1973 (the day before Halloween - known as Devil's Night in Michigan, where we lived - no significance to that, just thought I'd throw that in), when I was 10; if he were alive today, he'd be 109. He's probably glad not to have to be 109! Grampa - Herbert Henry, known as Bert or HH - was born in 1900 in Nottingham, England. He emigrated to Michigan in the spring of 1920, while still 19. Never saw his parents again, in fact, didn't return to England for a visit until 1953. He turned 18 on Armistice Day and never was in the military. (His two-years-older brother William - Bill - was in the Army in WWI.) Grampa never lost his accent and I only ever saw him wear either workpants with a white button-down shirt or a suit. Always grey, I think. He never left the house, or at least the property, without his hat. He smoked and he liked overripe bananas. Black ones. The only time I ever spent the night at his house by myself, he cooked Dinty Moore Beef Stew for dinner. Grampa was left-handed but was forced to switch to the right hand at school. He wrote with his right hand, drew with his left, and painted with either. He was a housepainter - my oldest cousin, who used to work for him in the summers, says he could draw a perfectly straight line along the length of a wall with no ruler. Grampa was not a sentimental man but he wrote at least one poem. Though a Christian, he was not a church-goer when I knew him, though he attended regularly when my dad and his siblings were growing up. Except Christmas and Easter - he said he would give up his seat on those days to one of those people that never darkened a church door except on those two holidays. There was a small hill in the back yard at his house and my sisters and I had so much fun rolling down it. Grampa's house was where I watched one of the Apollo rockets lift off.
This is one of the ways I remember Grampa best, in his workshop in the garage. Besides being a painter (and an artist and occasional poet), he could build things. He built the built-in bookshelves and corner shelves in Aunt Lizzie's house and a hutch we had for a long time. When I see this photo, I can smell the paint and woodshavings in the garage. I used to love to play with the vise bolted to his workbench, twirling the handle back and forth, clamping my own hand in it, then looking at the pattern it left on my skin. (Ok, so I could be a little odd. Who wasn't?) There was an old, rather beat-up roll-top desk in the garage that my dad inherited and gave to me. That desk has moved across the country and back! I still have it, though currently it's in another garage, waiting till I move to a place with a space for it.
So happy Grampa's Birthday everyone!
(And seriously - to all our veterans - thank you.)