Death and Taxes
This is going to be an unusual post coming from me, as most of my posts are silly, dirty, links to crazy stuff, crazy emails and memes, however this post is a shockingly serious post.
Today is April 15th, to most people this is tax day, as it was to my grandfather. My grandfather was a wonderful man, he was an attorney who did quite a bit of pro bono stuff and was just a generally all around wise man. One of his favorite sayings was "Nothing is certain but Death and Taxes". What makes this even more ironic, besides his procrastination of waiting to mail his taxes at midnight when they were due - simply because he wasn't going to give the government a cent more than they deserved and not before they deserved it, is that 11 years ago today he passed away at a relatively young age of 68. He would have been 80 this year, however his life was cut short from a long life of smoking, even though he had quit several years earlier after having to go into the hospital. If I didn't know better, I'd say he planned to pass on April 15th because he was just that kind of man. My memories of him are unfortunately more of when he was sick than when he was well, I was 15 when he passed, he had been sick for quite a while, not painfully sick up until the end thankfully.
I loved my grandfather, he taught me how to count by playing black jack with me when I was probably no older than 3 years old, I first started by counting the cards out loud, and eventually I moved to counting the cards on my fingers above the table, as I started learning more I relied less on my fingers and only counted on them under the table if I was having a hard time. My fondest memories of Grindaddy are playing cards with him, he was a gambler at heart and if he had ever gotten to Las Vegas, he would've broken the bank. We played all sorts of card games, simple games such as war & go fish as well as more complex gambling type games such as black jack and poker. He is the reason that I love any and all card games and will gladly learn new ones if others are willing to teach them.
I vaguely remember going down to his office in the Bank Building downtown occasionally when I'd stay with them, My grandmother was his secretary, but sadly I don't remember any other details of this.
He always called me a knot head. I was and have always been a stubborn girl, and that was how he expressed that to me, he'd knock on my head and say "you knot head". It was a term of endearment, not an insult.
After he retired, when I would stay with Nan & him he and I would sit and he'd watch Cartoon Express Cartoons with me, and then afterwards we'd watch the game shows that came on. We'd watch Press Your Luck and Card Sharks together, along with various other game shows that might come on at that time. I had alot of fun during those days with them, I wish I had had more of an opportunity to get to know him now that I'm older and as an adult. I think we'd be quite similar, as everyone in my family always compares me to him.
The last trip we took with him, as well as probably the last trip he took all together, we drove down to a place called Calloway Gardens which is around Columbus, GA - It's near the AL/GA line. It's impossible to get there directly from Macon, You have to take alot of back roads or drive north out of the way towards atlanta and then back down southwest, either way we always managed to get lost on this drive. This particular trip was to view the new "Christmas Lights" feature they had started there - it was the worst trip ever, you drove through the gardens to view them, however there were SO many people we were going so slowly it took probably over 3 hours to go from the beginning to the end of what was not a very big area and the lights were pretty crappy. However, one particular display stands out in my mind, simply because my grandfather loved it. It was unusual, but it was lights of Frogs over a real lake, hopping over lilipads - we never figured out what they had to do with christmas, however we laughed about that for years, and still do laugh about it. After we finally got through the horrible christmas lights, although laughing still about the frogs we all needed dinner, by this time it was probably 9:30 or 10p and we hadn't had anything since lunch, so we were all hungry. Of course, since it's dark we ended up leaving calloway and driving what we thought was towards Macon. Well, we ended up in this town called Manchester, and we stopped at the McDonald's to get food and get some directions on how to get from there back to Macon. My grandfather was notoriously known for eating slowly. He would always tell me to chew at least 20? times (i'm foggy on the number) before swallowing. So we're sitting in this McDonald's and this group of teenagers come in, and they were quite scary, as they were loud, african american and overall thugs. My grandfather was completely unaware of what was going on and was slowly eating, while the rest of us were trying to hurry him up to get the hell out of there. The guys who entered began fighting with some of the employees there, so to a young child, it was a scary experience. We managed to get out of there alive, but only after finding out that it was not possible to get from Manchester to Macon. We had to t urn around and go back to Calloway. We did, and we finally made it home quite late, mind you.. but it's a trip that we'll always remember and talk about. It was a good final trip and memory of my grandfather, even if the trip itself was horrid.
I do miss my grandfather, I'm sure if he were around today, I'd go visit and we'd play a game of cards, however I'd be able to teach him new games now.
I'm sure I'll think of more to say, however right now, I'm at a loss for words. He truely was a great man and the world needs more people like him.
Today is April 15th, to most people this is tax day, as it was to my grandfather. My grandfather was a wonderful man, he was an attorney who did quite a bit of pro bono stuff and was just a generally all around wise man. One of his favorite sayings was "Nothing is certain but Death and Taxes". What makes this even more ironic, besides his procrastination of waiting to mail his taxes at midnight when they were due - simply because he wasn't going to give the government a cent more than they deserved and not before they deserved it, is that 11 years ago today he passed away at a relatively young age of 68. He would have been 80 this year, however his life was cut short from a long life of smoking, even though he had quit several years earlier after having to go into the hospital. If I didn't know better, I'd say he planned to pass on April 15th because he was just that kind of man. My memories of him are unfortunately more of when he was sick than when he was well, I was 15 when he passed, he had been sick for quite a while, not painfully sick up until the end thankfully.
I loved my grandfather, he taught me how to count by playing black jack with me when I was probably no older than 3 years old, I first started by counting the cards out loud, and eventually I moved to counting the cards on my fingers above the table, as I started learning more I relied less on my fingers and only counted on them under the table if I was having a hard time. My fondest memories of Grindaddy are playing cards with him, he was a gambler at heart and if he had ever gotten to Las Vegas, he would've broken the bank. We played all sorts of card games, simple games such as war & go fish as well as more complex gambling type games such as black jack and poker. He is the reason that I love any and all card games and will gladly learn new ones if others are willing to teach them.
I vaguely remember going down to his office in the Bank Building downtown occasionally when I'd stay with them, My grandmother was his secretary, but sadly I don't remember any other details of this.
He always called me a knot head. I was and have always been a stubborn girl, and that was how he expressed that to me, he'd knock on my head and say "you knot head". It was a term of endearment, not an insult.
After he retired, when I would stay with Nan & him he and I would sit and he'd watch Cartoon Express Cartoons with me, and then afterwards we'd watch the game shows that came on. We'd watch Press Your Luck and Card Sharks together, along with various other game shows that might come on at that time. I had alot of fun during those days with them, I wish I had had more of an opportunity to get to know him now that I'm older and as an adult. I think we'd be quite similar, as everyone in my family always compares me to him.
The last trip we took with him, as well as probably the last trip he took all together, we drove down to a place called Calloway Gardens which is around Columbus, GA - It's near the AL/GA line. It's impossible to get there directly from Macon, You have to take alot of back roads or drive north out of the way towards atlanta and then back down southwest, either way we always managed to get lost on this drive. This particular trip was to view the new "Christmas Lights" feature they had started there - it was the worst trip ever, you drove through the gardens to view them, however there were SO many people we were going so slowly it took probably over 3 hours to go from the beginning to the end of what was not a very big area and the lights were pretty crappy. However, one particular display stands out in my mind, simply because my grandfather loved it. It was unusual, but it was lights of Frogs over a real lake, hopping over lilipads - we never figured out what they had to do with christmas, however we laughed about that for years, and still do laugh about it. After we finally got through the horrible christmas lights, although laughing still about the frogs we all needed dinner, by this time it was probably 9:30 or 10p and we hadn't had anything since lunch, so we were all hungry. Of course, since it's dark we ended up leaving calloway and driving what we thought was towards Macon. Well, we ended up in this town called Manchester, and we stopped at the McDonald's to get food and get some directions on how to get from there back to Macon. My grandfather was notoriously known for eating slowly. He would always tell me to chew at least 20? times (i'm foggy on the number) before swallowing. So we're sitting in this McDonald's and this group of teenagers come in, and they were quite scary, as they were loud, african american and overall thugs. My grandfather was completely unaware of what was going on and was slowly eating, while the rest of us were trying to hurry him up to get the hell out of there. The guys who entered began fighting with some of the employees there, so to a young child, it was a scary experience. We managed to get out of there alive, but only after finding out that it was not possible to get from Manchester to Macon. We had to t urn around and go back to Calloway. We did, and we finally made it home quite late, mind you.. but it's a trip that we'll always remember and talk about. It was a good final trip and memory of my grandfather, even if the trip itself was horrid.
I do miss my grandfather, I'm sure if he were around today, I'd go visit and we'd play a game of cards, however I'd be able to teach him new games now.
I'm sure I'll think of more to say, however right now, I'm at a loss for words. He truely was a great man and the world needs more people like him.