Grandpa

I got a call from my mom late last night. My grandpa passed away yesterday. It didn’t come as a big surprise as he had been battling cancer for a while now, but it still hurts. When my grandma passed away, we sat around sharing stories…sometimes laughing & sometimes crying…but it helped. As I’m here in Thailand and will be unable to attend my grandpa’s funeral, I would like take a minute to share a few stories here.

I think I was in the 5th grade when Grandpa decided that it was time for me to learn how to drive a stick-shift. He had some irrigation work to do in one of the fields across town and he told me that I was going to drive Old Blue (a beat-up old pickup truck). I was so scared…I knew the basics of driving a stick, but had never done it before (which means I new you had to put the clutch in when you shifted & stopped, but that’s about it) not to mention the fact that I was not even close to reaching the legal driving age. But Grandpa was calm & told me that I could do it…so we set out.

I was doing a good job until I had to stop for construction in “downtown” Willow Creek. Once the road was clear, I couldn’t get the truck to go again…it kept stalling (I didn’t realize at the time that you should be in 1st or 2nd gear when you start going & not 3rd). So anyway, there we are, stalled in the middle of the road in town…and I’m starting to panic. The construction guys have stopped working to stare at us & I’m convinced that I’m going to get arrested for driving without a license. I could feel the tears welling in my eyes as I turned and told Grandpa that I couldn’t do it. He didn’t get mad, he didn’t yell, he just got out of the truck, got behind the wheel & told me that I would get it next time. His patience & calmness did more to comfort me than anything else.

Another time…we were all up visiting and Mom & Grandma had gone into Bozeman to do some shopping…and left Grandpa to watch us kids. Now we loved it when Grandpa “watched” us because he always spent the entire time napping in front of the T.V. We learned early that we could get away with a lot more when Grandpa “watched” us. This day we decided to watch “Pippi Longstockings.” I don’t know how many of you have seen the movie, but there’s this part where Pippi cleans her house…by filling it with bubbles & skating through the house with scrub-brushes on her feet. We figured that this was about the coolest thing ever & decided that it would be awesome if we could do it too. So, we woke Grandpa and asked him if we could clean the basement (we were smart little buggers). Of course he said yes then promptly fell back to sleep…so we were set. We had the little kids tie washcloths to the bottom of their feet, and the big kids got buckets & filled them with soap & water. We stood at the top of the stairs & poured the buckets of water down to the little ones. We were having a grand time until Mom & Grandma got back. I still remember the look on their faces (the garage entrance is in the basement…so they walked right into our “mess”). Luckily, the basement floor is cement with a drain in the middle…but they were still pretty pissed. I’m pretty sure that Grandpa got into more trouble than we did.

I had one of the best grandpas ever. He had an enormous sweet-tooth which was AWESOME for us grandkids because it meant that there was a constant supply of cookies & candy for us to sneak. And I could always count on him to suggest a bowl of ice-cream in the evening. He was patient and steady, calm and loving. We got into a lot of mischief on the ranch, but I don’t think he ever yelled at us. He was a very successful rancher (was even inducted into the Cattlemen’s Hall of Fame), but he always made time for us grandkids. I couldn’t have asked for a better grandfather & he will be greatly missed.