grandpa from now on last week grandpa was in the paper monday he was on the tv yesterday i heard him on cbc radio he's ninetythreeyearsold now he just graduated from highschool 041020 ... from now on last week grandpa hurt his hand he was cutting wood in the forest he runs his own little sawmill he had to get twenty stitches he was on the radio again and in more newspapers 041031 ... monee heart aneurysm 050105 ... .nom i talked to him the other day "no she's not back yet, i don't know when" he didn't even talk about his heart i didn't even either we didn't even talk about the weather 050214 ... .nom we didn't really even talk i don't think we really ever have 050214 ... nom he didn't consult me about the genealogy he's publishing his book and it has mistakes i pointed them out to him and then felt bad 060422 ... nom i saw the book in the bookstore window when i got back from vancouver i read some of it 060702 ... nom grandpa brought peaches the other day i showed him my paintings he wants me to enter my shawls in the fall fair 060819 ... tessa i wonder what he thought of me? 060820 ... . i remember sittin on his knee, his hardness pressing against me. dirty old man. i still loved him. 060821 ... nom grandpa lives in town now his barn of treasures was sold 061230 ... n o m he's 101 years old 121011 ... PeeT i would love to interview him. 121011 ... epitome of incomprehensibility I was writing about him, and now I miss him. He died eleven years ago. He taught me algebra when I was 9, of the "x + 3 = 5, what's x?" sort, making me think I was a smart in math when I wasn't. I miss him, and his VIA train hat, and his terrible accent when he spoke French. 131101 ... e_o_i "a smart in math" indeed. I'm also a smart in English! 131101 ... n o m 102! 131102 ... e_o_i That's impressive! I had a neighbour(ish; parents drove her places sometimes, though she didn't live that close) who lived to 103. I hope you win my imaginary contest - I mean that he lives longer. As long as he wants, at least. 131103 ... n o m he died last fall, just before his 104th 160302 ... e_o_i nr, I'm sorry to hear that. He probably had an interesting life, though - a lot of things to see and feel in that space of time. 160303 ... nr that was n o m who posted that, e_o_i, not me :) (so many letters-only names!) my last living grandfather passed away this summer at age 90. 160303 ... e_o_i Belated sorriness, nom & nr, for mixing you up! In "misheard" I said I'd misheard "Alzheimer's disease" as "old-timer's disease" as a kid, but I think my grandfather said this on purpose as a joke. I don't know whether he ever had it - he died because other things were wrong with him (heart problems, infection, diabetes, something with blood cells). In the hospital a few weeks before, Mom was saying he acted confused but then, later, that she felt hopeful because when someone mentioned there was a fly in the room, he joked, "Where's the ointment?" (re the expression "fly in the ointment"). Note: you can make silly puns and still be dying. It just struck me; he was kind of like me in that he'd joke about serious things (or around them) as a way of coping. He liked to recite a poem he said he wrote in the war. He was no John MacCrae or Wilfred Owen (okay, those guys were WW1, but my point is he wasn't, er, very good at poetry). The only line I remember of it was something about the Germans "goose-stepping on the Rhine" which he'd say in a singsongy voice, laughing. (Question: how could they march ON a river?) And the last line was something like "And it's not over yet" although it'd been over for about 50 years by that point. I could feel superior about being the better poet, relatively speaking, but I'm afraid I'd be no good as a mechanical engineer. Or as a soldier (shudder). Probably he thought along gendered lines for future careers: not in the sense of girls being unfit for STEM work at all, but more that boys would do the practical, engineering-type stuff. The boy-child got his old Meccano and chemistry sets and the girl-child was taught exponents and algebra. Psych! they both turned into non-STEMmy writer/teacher-types. Maybe it was the poetry. 200420 ... e_o_i No, I think the chem set was my uncle's. The Meccano was more ancient. 200420 ... kerry i had 3 grandpas, each mediocre at best and worst at worst. 1: absent in all ways, leaving a legacy of snapshots and macho stoicism. 2: absent in most ways, alcoholic, war-obsessed, bored himself to death. 3: murderer. 210816 ... e_o_i (I have to do math-related stuff for phonology and historical linguistics. Maybe Grandpa was on to something after all.) 211011 ... e_o_i my_grandfather 240319 what's it to you? who go blather from