Yankee Doodle Dandy

My Grandpa was born on the 4th of July and every year on his birthday we would stand around the old spool that served as a picnic table and sing “Yankee Doodle Dandy” instead of “Happy Birthday”. Grandpa was one of my favorite people in this world. He used to thump my head with his fingers to let me know he was behind me. He always wore his slippers in the house because Grandma made him take off his boots. Grandpa was a farmer in the truest sense of the word. He raised cows, chickens, wheat, hay, horses and children. Oh, and I forgot, rocks. That old homestead in North Dakota was about half rocks. He loved it anyway and I loved it too.

Whenever we would visit, I would beg to be allowed to go with the boys and help in the field. Grandpa was determined that I was going to stay in the house. He didn't want anything to happen to me. I guess he wasn't worried about my brothers. As a toddler I remember sitting on his lap while he did little tricks for me. He would make things disappear and I would try to guess where they had gone. I loved to listen to Grandma and Grandpa sing “Amazing Grace, while Grandpa played the ukulele. He would sit to the old piano and sing Tra-la-la, because he didn't know the words to the songs. Dominoes, Cooties, Chinese Checkers and Parcheesi were always on hand to play at Grandpa's house, and Grandma always had a piece of cake or fudge stripe cookies to eat. Whenever I would stay the night at Grandpa and Grandma's, we would get to ride down to the mailbox on Grandpa's old horse Smokey to pick up the mail. And on Memorial Day, Grandpa would take us to the old Cemetery on the Prairie where many of our relatives were buried and tell us stories about them.

Grandma would always interrupt Grandpa when he was telling a story, trying to put in her two cents, and Grandpa would always huff and puff and say, “Let me tell it!” And whenever he visited our house I would find him in some quiet corner of the house taking a nap. Grandpa used to tell us stories about when Grandma was teaching school at the little one room school a mile from their house. He would hitch up the sleigh and put hot rocks in the bottom, bundle Grandma and the kids in their blankets and drive them to the school. Then he would get the old coal stove burning before he left for home. Grandpa had a big red barn where he kept hay, milked cows and raised calves. When I was little he took me by the hand one day and walked me out to the barn. He wouldn't tell me what he as up to until we got in the barn and he lifted me up to the horses manger where there was a batch of kittens. He let me sit in the manger and play with them while he did his chores.

All this and so much more is what I remember of Grandpa. But there is one memory of him that causes me pain. It was when I was a teenager. My best friend Darcy had come to spend the day with our family at Grandpa's house. We had gotten out of the car and headed straight for the barn to saddle the horse and go for a ride. We didn't tell anyone. I guess we just assumed that they knew. We rode out of the yard and down the road where I had something special I wanted to show my friend. When we got to the special place, we tied up the horse and began to explore. There was a great little mud hole where we had a water fight, a little cliff on which we climbed and carved our names, a beaver dam to inspect and best of all, no one else around. We had the time of our lives. After a long time we got back on the horse and rode to the farm, but what awaited us was an unwelcome surprise. Everyone was upset and worried and we were in trouble because no one knew where we were. Grandma and Grandpa were especially angry and told us that we couldn't ride the horse ever again. It was the first time they had ever been angry at me. I was heartbroken. I felt banished and dead inside. Then, just a few days later, I received a phone call from my Dad telling me that Darcy had been killed in a car accident. I thought my life had caved in. The pain was interminable. After the funeral Grandpa apologized for being angry. But I learned one of the toughest lessons of my life. That is, that the anger of someone you love can be just as painful as losing someone you love in death, but anger can be avoided.