Grandpa

Today I was thinking about how someday I will be a grandpa. (If you are reading this and your name is Jimmy, Caitlin, Ben, or Michele I better not become a grandpa anytime soon!) Someday I hope to be one of those eccentric type grandpa's. This is likely because 1. I am already an eccentric middle aged guy and 2. My grandpa Ezra Hohulin was pretty eccentric. At least he seemed that way to me. Most grandpa's seem a little odd to their grandkids. I mean here's an old guy who doesn't have a job, but always has candy.

One time, when I was about 11 years old Grandpa took me to KFC. But it wasn't called KFC back then. It was called Kentucky Fried Chicken. The word fried did not sound healthy, so they cleverly changed the name to KFC. Marketing people think we are stupid, and they are right.
So there we were getting fried chicken, before the name change made it healthy to do so.

As we entered the store grandpa announces to everyone, "This is my Grandson!" As if I were royalty and my presence suddenly made their chicken shopping experience something to tell their families about. "We were getting the chicken and who do you think walked in? A grandson!" People smiled in response.

I was special, because he made me special. The relationship between a grandparent and their grandchild can be magical. The grand relationship. There really isn't anything else like it. They are often the only people in our young lives who really listen and don't yell at us. We sense the vestiges of authority they have over our all powerful parents.

I remember being quite little and mystified when Grandpa's identity was revealed to me. He was my mom's dad. Parents had parents? So then, my parents were little once? Even as small children, our grandparents help us understand that life has stages. Our parents were once like us, someday our parents, and then we, would be like our grandparents. There was an order to things. I was an important link in this chain.

As grandpa and I stood in line, I saw a dollar on the floor. I picked it up and showed it to him. He was more excited than I was. Now he had more information to share with the customers and staff. Not only was I his grandson, I was his wealthy grandson. He made me re-enact how I swooped down and snatched the money out from underneath them all. Clearly I had all the makings of a financial genius.

It occurs to me just now as I write this over 30 years later, that Grandpa dropped that dollar so I would find it. Eccentric grandpa's specialize in that kind of thing.

Someday I will tell my grandchildren many stories of all of the stupid things their parents did when they were growing up. Thus undermining their authority, which is just one of the many services grandparents provide. I will spoil them rotten, indulge their every whim, get them all hopped up on candy, and send them home. I will have my sweet revenge on my kids for the hell I am now enduring, which we call raising teenagers.

Sam Levenson said, "The reason grandparents and grandchildren get along so well is that they have a common enemy." My children's offspring will become my allies. The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

Someday I will have no job, lots of candy, and total acceptance and love for some children who will call me grandpa. I will take them into stores and proudly introduce them as if they were somebody. And they will be.