Four years later

Gramps in the 1960s

Four years later and a week doesn’t pass by without me thinking, for a fleeting second, “I need to tell my grandpa this.” Then, of course, reality sets in and I get angry. Angry that four years have passed and the hurt still remains at the realization that he’s not here, and at the thought that soon, one day, it will be twenty years. 

I was led to believe, or at least hoped, that this would go away with time, but something will still come up that will remind me of him, and for a brief second I’ll forget that he’s no longer here. 

Something as simple as a mosquito bite will remind me of how he’d daub calamine lotion all over his arms and legs after being bitten at the lake, oblivious to how ridiculous he looked with all these bright wet spots covering his body like some sort of flesh-toned leopard. 

Or I’ll find myself whistling and remember how he could carry a tune in that manner like a songbird in search of a mate. He had a great memory for names and people, and occasionally I’ll be wondering about something or someone from our days in Oak Park and I’ll think, for a nanosecond, “I’ll have to ask grandpa if he remembers,” only for me to remember that this is no longer possible, and I get angry. 

I miss him, yet the rest of the world keeps going forward like nothing is wrong. I know intellectually this is how things are, but it doesn’t stop me from spewing a string of profanities in my mind at my perceived unfairness of “how things are.” 

And it makes me think of my own future and my own death, and how we come and go in a blink of time’s eye, the world moving on like a steamroller on steroids, leaving a trail in its wake that over time fades until nothing remains. 

My grandfather, at least, touched and impacted many people. His force still leaves tendrils going forward that are intertwined with others to such an extent that, again, I sometimes forget he’s not here anymore. If someone like him will someday be forgotten, his impact lost over the passing years, what hope is there for someone like me who has basically done nothing with his life compared to him? 

I know some will be irked with me saying that and remind me that this is not true, that you can’t judge a life by accomplishments, and for the most part I agree. I just expected more, having him as a role model, and while, yes, some things that steered the direction of my life were beyond my control, others were my own doing, or more precisely, my own not-doing. 

I hate even expressing such feelings openly, because it smacks of feeling sorry for oneself, even though this is not the case; I know my life is so much better than most (First-World Problems and all that… ;-) And you know what? My grandfather was good at discussing such things with me, and he was able to make me feel better. 

That was one of his roles, being the anchor of the family. I feel like I must take on that roll for my family, for my daughter and her son, but worry that there will be no way I’ll be able to succeed in this as my grandfather did, and think to myself, for the second time this week, “I’ll have to ask him about this.” 

And we’ve come full circle.

Talahi Diaries, September 10, 1966 / 2005

In a fitting piece of irony, synchronicity, coincidence... or whatever you may call it... the very first entry in the Talahi diary was written on the same day that the very last entry was entered, 39 years later:

September 10, 1966

Drove to Lake Geneva to look at property for a summer home. Went to Joerm [?] Realty. Mr. Clifford showed us several. We fell "in love" with a house in Indian Hills. [Grandpa]

That's the house they put an offer on two days later (according to the diary). The offer? $14,000. I don't know if that offer was accepted, but the house was purchased, and they closed on October 14, 1966:

Closed deal on purchase of property in Fontana. Will name it "Talahi" (our T.C. annual) which is Chippewa Indian for "Under The Oaks." Very appropriate w/ our oaks. [Grandpa]

"T.C" refers to St. Cloud State Teacher's College, as it was called then, and is where my grandparents met. Here's a picture taken just three or so months later, early in 1967:

Fast-forward 39 years to September 10, 2005. My grandparents were now living in Dallas, but were spending the summers at the lake house. However, we didn't want my grandfather to make the long two-day drive, so the last couple of years I'd drive them up there and fly back home. At the end of the summer I'd fly back up there and drive them back. After 2005 we didn't think it was a good idea for them to be up there for three months by themselves, so they stayed year around in Dallas. This particular September day was the last time my grandfather was at Talahi, and, as usual, I made a diary entry:

September 10, 2005

Breakfast at Hot Diggity Dog. Today we'll make the house ready for the winter. Will leave tomorrow in the AM. [Hank]

"Hot Diggity Dog" was a hole-in-the-wall eatery of the type that my grandparents were so fond. It was in Walworth, and was open from 5am to 1pm, basically serving breakfasts to local farmers and the occasional hot dog to tourists.

Now, I was up at Talahi last summer (2008) to load up a U-Haul full of furniture and boxes that I then drove back to Dallas, but I was unable to make a diary entry. I really wanted to, knowing that it was the last day I'd ever be at Talahi, but unfortunately the diary had been packed in one of the boxes and I couldn't find it. I contemplated "faking" the entry, adding it after the fact, but in the end chose not to. The entry of September 10, 2005, coming 39 years to the day after the first entry, thus, is the final entry.

Here's a picture of the house from 2004. (Click on it to see a larger version). In almost 40 years the pine trees at the front of the house have grown from about 3 feet high to about 40, and the new edition that we built onto the house is visible on the left. The composition is kind of odd, but I wanted to capture the feeling of the tall, majestic oaks that surrounded the house and property. They were, after all, the inspiration for the house's name:

Talahi Diaries, May 5-7, 1967

In 1966, when my grandparents decided to purchase a summer house near Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, they were given a little red diary by their friends Grace and Army. They were to use this diary to record all their time at the cottage. My grandfather made several entries at first, but then stopped after about a year. Several years later I found the diary and started to make entries every time I was up at the lake, and this continued for the next 30 years or so until my grandparents decided to sell the house a year ago (it's still on the market, by the way). I'm going to transcribe all of my grandfather's entries here, in chronological order, but I'm going to start with his entries from the weekend of May 5, 1967, because this is where I randomly opened the diary just now. As it turns out, these were the last entries he made, so it's sort of appropriate. I'll offer any associated memories I have with a given entry. Won't this be fun? ;-)


May 5, 1967 (Friday):

Drove up from O.P. [Oak Park] w/ Grandma & Grandpa Toti & Hankie. Fixed nice fire in fireplace. Arrived about 7:30 pm after having burger @ Marengo. [Grandpa]

When we'd make the two-hour drive from Oak Park to the lake house in Fontana, Wisconsin (one of three villages on Lake Geneva, the other two being William's Bay and Lake Geneva), we'd often stop at a burger joint named "Yum-Yums" in Marengo, IL. If ever a place warranted the "joint" moniker, it was this joint. A hole-in-the-wall right across from the local high school, it served shakes, malts, and "char-broiled" burgers, including my favorite, the "pizza burger" which of course had mozzarella cheese and tomato sauce on it. The color scheme was late 60s "harvest orange" and brown, and it had the requisite booths with faded vinyl seats in said color with rips where the stuffing was coming out, cigarette burns on the tabletops, and a juke box in the corner. It was great.

Grandpa and grandma Toti were my grandmother's parents, and thus my great-grandparents. They lived about 800 miles away in Eveleth, MN, but my grandfather would drive them down to the Chicago area once a year or so to visit.

May 6, 1967 (Saturday):

Hankie woke up about 5:45 am. Built kite for Hank. Broke 1st time but Hankie got to fly it at College Camp Field. Poppy did a lot of yard work - Nice day. [Grandpa]

My grandfather made this kite out of a paper bag from Carson Pirie Scott and strips of wood, and some rags for a tail. The night before we'd glued and tied the sticks together in a cross and the cut the bag to a kite shape and glued it to the cross. I was anxious to play with the kite right then, but my grandfather told me the glue would have to dry first. I was very impatient. He also made a kite string caddy and wound what seemed like miles of string around it in preparation for the next day's event. I of course was so excited to fly the kite that I woke up really early; I remember the sun wasn't up yet, and see now that it was 5:45 am. My poor grandfather. I still can clearly see my grandfather struggling to get the kite aloft in the relatively calm morning. I still don't know where College Camp field is in Lake Geneva, maybe someone can enlighten me.

I'd never heard my grandfather refer to my great-grandfather as "poppy" in my life; it was usually "Fred", and occasionally "papa", rarely "Bona Fede" (his real name), but never "poppy". I don't know what that was about.

May 7, 1967 (Sunday)

Left for O.P. about 7:00 pm on May 6th [Grandpa]

I don't know why he entered this on the next day rather than on Saturday, but I include this entry for completeness.

And yes, my grandfather called me "Hankie" his entire life.

The Frogs

So my mom collects a certain type of animal-themed stuff. I won't say which animal so as not to influence you, because I want to ask you, the reader, what you see in the picture below:


My mom has these figurines on her tabletop right now. She has different stuff for every month of the year, and this, evidently, is for May. Okay, now here's the question: What are these figurines?

Do you have your answer?

Is your answer "frogs, Hank, they're frogs"?

What was your first clue? Their green hue? Their three-toed web feet? The fact that many people collect frog stuff and these look like frogs?

Why, you ask, am I wasting your time with this? Well here's the thing: We were having a family brunch the other day and my grandfather looks at the frog figurines and laughs, saying,

"I still can't get over those two black people you have on the table! Hahaha, they look so funny, that black farmer couple!!!"

To make matters worse, my grandmother joined in, agreeing that gee those figurines of representing black people were hilarious.

This bothered me and an argument ensued. Why do you think these are black people, I asked both of them.

"Well, for one thing, they're black colored!"

"No they're NOT, they're green!" I countered in disbelief.

"No, they're black!", they both disagreed. "Well, I guess if you really look at them maybe they're sort of green, but at first glance they're black colored."

"NO THEY'RE NOT, THEY'RE OBVIOUSLY GREEN, AND OBVIOUSLY FROGS!", I sort of yelled, in all caps, in horrid disbelief.

"But they're wearing a bandana! And the one has a fishing pole! Just like blacks!"

My head almost exploded.

"What, only black people wear bandanas? And did I miss the stereotype that says blacks love to fish?" I stammered.

"Yeah, blacks love to fish, and they dress like that in the old books. Look at Huckleberry Finn for example!"

"But Huck was white, for crying out loud!!!"

"But there was Jim, and he wore overalls, too."

"What the hell are you going on about? They're FROGS!"

"Hehehehe... Well, I guess we never noticed they were frogs. We both thought they were black people. Look at the big-lipped mouths."

BrainfryBrainFryBRAIN-FRY.

"But they're GREEN, and you know mom collects frogs, and they have three toes and fingers! You realize how racist you guys are!!"

"Look, Hank, if we showed these figurines to 50 random people from off the street, every single one would see that they were black people. We're not racist, those figurines just look like black people."

"NO, grandpa, of those 50 people, 50 would say they were frogs. Well, maybe there would be one racist amongst them, but even that racist would see they were frogs... frogs that reminded them of black people, but frogs none the less."

At which point my grandparents laugh and shake their head at their dumb grandson. I then complained that my grandmother in particular has always been a racist, albeit a "positive racist", in that she says things like, "Oh, that Avery Johnson is a good looking black man", or "that black woman talks in a very intelligent manner", or "Oh, look at that poor black boy walking down the street. I feel so sorry for him, since he probably has to walk everywhere and has never been in a car". That sort of thing.

At which point she stopped laughing and began to act hurt, as is her wont. My grandfather, on the other hand, kept looking at the frogs and laughing during the entire meal while I seethed.

End of Rant.