Walking With Granddad
“Son,” Granddad began, “What say we go for a walk?”
Granddad always called me, “son.”
I jumped up from my comfortable pallet made for me by Grandma from a particularly soft yellow and white quilt. Eager to join Granddad, I hurried to put shoes on my feet before having to be told to do so.
The old man’s eyes sparkled with humor as he watched me get read and he, likewise began lacing up his own shoes.
From his lips hung a burning cigarette. An unfiltered Camel. His brand and style of choice. I knew he would not put it out before we left and he did not.
Instead, Granddad reached for the pack of cigarettes on top of the wooden console radio, felt to be sure there were plenty for the outing, then stood to signal his readiness to get moving.
I too was ready and like my natural father’s father, I stood to join him.
Outside, the sky was dark. Granddad had little interest in walking during the day unless it happened to be pleasant out. He much preferred the night for it was cooler and he had a love of the night sky. It was a love he shared with and inspired in others.
“Come on, Smokey!” Granddad called. Smokey, was a shepherd mix of medium build, some sixty-five pounds, cream colored, and with a smokey grayish ring around his neck. He rose from the comfort of his dog house, stretched from his front to his back first leaning on the left front and back right feet then on the right front and left back feet, giving himself a thorough shake before finally deciding to join us.
Granddad lived, like many of us in that time in Beautiful, East Texas in a home that was still remote enough that there was little or no noise pollution from traffic or neighbors and even less light pollution. Airplanes flew overhead but there was little else to take away from the loveliness of God’s Beautiful Creation. Along his property line on the north side were two structures, the only two for a while in any direction. On the north east side, his home. A three bedroom, red brick ranch style home enclosed by a chain link fence. On the north west side a white dairy barn in front of which was the only source of light pollution to be found, a bright shining, white security light atop a large wooden pole of the same type and similar height of those used to suspend electrical wires.
The roads all around were dirt roads, that is, all except the road for the well paved farm to market road a mile or so away from Granddad and Grandma’s house to the dairy barn.
Granddad, Smokey, and I stepped from the grass covered lawn, on to the white rock driveway, and then onto to black oil top road as we headed from the house towards that dairy barn.
I did not like to show it but, at just five years old, I continued to harbor a youthful fear of the dark. I was not so very afraid with Granddad there beside me but would have been altogether unwilling to go out past the glow of the porch light if he were not there beside me, not even in Smokey’s comforting and, when necessary, formidable presence. I reached out for my grandfathers rough, calloused, work-worn hand, and was much comforted when, without a word, he took my very young hand into his own.
Old man and little boy walked on the oil top road together in companionable silence for a while. The only lights were those shining overhead in the night sky, in the distance at the dairy barn, and suspended from Granddad’s lips. Several times a minute that one grew much brighter, then dimmed again as he inhaled and exhaled lungs full of smoke.
We did not walk fast. Granddad suffered from Emphysema as a consequence of his life-long addiction. Our steps were slow, plodding, but purposeful and taken with the shared joy peculiar to old men and little boys who share a special bond.
On the opposite side of the oil top road from Granddad and Grandma’s farm was more farmland owned a good friend and neighbor of Granddad, Mr. Guy Wade. Directly across from Granddad’s hen house was a stock tank. That is a “pool of water” for those of you who may not know. In token of friendship and the respect that Mr. Guy Wade had for Granddad, he invited him and me so long as I accompanied by him, to fish there.
It was a kindness as the stock tank was brimming with crappie, small mouth bass, catfish, and perch. A kindness that was only ever extended to Granddad, no one else was ever permitted to fish that stock tank despite many desiring to do so.
Smokey, loved Mr. Guy Wade’s stock tank as well though he had little interest in fishing. No, Smokey didn’t fish but he loved, loved, loved, a wonderfully cool, wet, splash and a swim. He never missed the opportunity to disappear for several minutes on those evening walks to avail himself of the opportunity.
When he did so, the pleasure, the obvious and abundant pleasure the dog took in this activity was clear in the sound produced as a consequence of his antics. Also evident was his desire to remain near Granddad. For though the dog loved his time in the water. He did not linger there. When the stock tank drew near, Smokey left us. As we walked the dogs splashing, swimming, shaking, and all his carry on was obvious and delightful, drawing grins across the faces of all who heard it. Then, when the body of water was behind us and without prompting, Smokey, now dripping wet, despite a good shake, reappeared and rejoined our walk, wearing a grin of his own
As we walked my young mind began working through questions. Granddad was a service station man. He was not a dairyman. He owned a filling station in Beautiful that boasted two mechanics bays as well as a full service and a self service fuel. Why then, did he have a diary barn?
“Granddad, why do you have a diary barn if you don’t milk cows?” I asked.
“Son, when your mother and I first moved here from California I decided the best way to support my family would be as a diary man. I’d had enough farming for a lifetime and knew I didn’t want to do that. So, I worked hard, we saved our money, and eventually we were able to buy this land. I built a diary and we lived in the little house that used to be there next to it before it fell down.”
I never understood why Granddad always called me son and why he always referred to Grandma as, “your mother.” It didn’t matter. I knew I was loved. That was enough.
My mother’s parents also owned a dairy. My Granny Alice worked the barn. I had some slight experience around working diaries. Enough to know that the work was hard and demanding.
“Did you like milking cows?”
Granddad inhaled deeply from his unfiltered Camel. In the suddenly much brighter light, I saw that only a fragment remained. He took another cigarette from the pack in his shirt pocket, lit the new cigarette from the fragment, threw the still glowing discard to the ground without bothering to extinguish it, inhaled another deep lung-full of smoke, exhaled, and said, “No. But it allowed me to provide for my family.”
We walked a while further, again in relative silence. The cicadas, crickets, and tree frogs all talked and sang but neither I nor Granddad said a word.
In time, we began to draw near to the dairy barn. As we did so, Granddad said, “I was in town one day and got wind there was an opportunity to be had in the service station business. Your mother and I decided it was time for a change. We bought the rights to the station and went into business. Since then We’ve rented the dairy to young dairymen over the years and its been good to us.”
At the dairy barn, I asked, “Where was the old house you and Grandma used to live in?”
“There,” Granddad pointed. “Part of it still stands.”
He was right and I marveled never having realized it before. The house was a ruin. Mostly torn down but still identifiable as once having been a home. It was a part of our family’s history I would never personally know as anything more than a ruin. A remnant of something that came before but was no longer. The thought caused my young mind to reel there in the white light that existed to deter ner-do-wells from making trouble at the barn.
I listened in that light as my grandfather spoke. I heard his words, the cicadas, crickets, tree frogs, and night birds. He continued to talk of days by gone long before I arrived on the Earth. I listened with a sense of wonder and stored it away never knowing, then, that I would carry it all forward in my heart, mind, and spirit. Great volumes, troves of history, of incalculable worth that too few would long remember. Stories, jokes, gossip, laughter, tears, rebukes, admonitions, and confidences, that in the context of that relationship were mine and his alone.
And now, to a lesser extent, shared here. A glimpse into something that could never otherwise be known. A fragment of something beautiful and sacred despite its being a kind or type of experience shared by Grandfathers and Grandsons across time and space.
Granddad, Smokey, and I walked out of the field of that harsh artificial light, into the velvet darkness softly lit by starlight and cigarette light. No moon hung in the sky. Had it already set? Perhaps it would rise later. I do not recall. I only remember that there was no moon then.
In its absence, the star-filled sky shimmered and glimmered with stars that shone like independently lit gemstones of many colors. Beautiful it was. A state of beauty in that Beautiful geography. A beautiful moment, a beautiful memory of a beautiful time, experienced there, in Beautiful, East Texas.
As we walked together back towards the house, away from the dairy barn, on the oil top road, old man and little boy, hand in hand, we did so with two very different understandings.
For my part and with the limited understanding of a little feller of only five, that was just life. It never occurred to me that those moments were either sacred or fleeting. The simply were.
For his part, Granddad knew all too well just how sacred, special, and fleeting those precious moments were. He knew that just as my time on the Earth was still in its earliest days, his was nearing its end. There was a little time left. A little space to move about yet. But, as is always the case, that precious time was ever-expiring.
Old man and little boy walked hand in hand sharing something special. As they did so, in a sense, time flowed from the one and into the other. With it also flowed the stories, history, shared experience, and sacred trust that provides continuity in families, or should if we honor those who came before and dearly love those to whom we are correctly obligated to entrust it too, this legacy, this inheritance that has nothing to do with money, temporal wealth, or probate courts.
What passed between us then and there was life and something greater. May the Good Lord help me to pass it on to my children and their children. We live in a world were families are no longer tied to each other by geography. Children move away. Grandchildren are well loved but not often seen. And yet, this obligation remains. I am filled with the stories and memories of what came before.
It is hard to compete with distance, Tik-Tok, Youtube, Xbox, and all the activities that consume the youth of children and grandchildren today.
I wonder if they will ever listen, when I am gone. If it is worthwhile to record them here. After all, it is primarily for their sake that I do. Don’t get me wrong, I love the idea that others might also enjoy hearing the stories. Still, I long for some reassurance that it might benefit my own babies and their babies.
Will it?
I do not know.
I know this though, I will continue to make the effort to create something that might, just might, bless them, some of them, any of them today or eventually. As I do so, I will take additional pleasure in the idea that others may also enjoy, benefit from, and be blessed by this ongoing effort as well.
Passing Mr. Guy Wade’s stock tank I heard Smokey splashing unseen in the dark.
“Granddad?”
“Yes son?”
Granddad always called me, “son.”
When we get home can we have root beer floats?
“We sure can!”
“Granddad?”
“Yes son?”
“Thank you for showing me whats left of the old house and telling me about the dairy and the service station.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Granddad?”
“Yes son?”
“I love you.”
Granddad’s gnarled old hand gently squeezed mine.
“I love you too, son.”
Thank you for listening to this episode of You’ve Been Hanked. If you enjoyed my stories of Beautiful East Texas and want to support my work, please consider becoming a paid subscriber. Please also consider writing a five star review on either Apple or Spotify to help the podcast grow.
Thanks for being here. Thank you for listening. Talk to you again soon.
Much Love,
Hank
You’ve Been Hanked!
