Cheese and Beer
(Day Forty-Two)
I'm sitting in the front room at the lake, playing Plants vs. Zombies and listening to my grandpa talk nonstop at the Kentucky vs. Wisconsin game on the television.
"I like Wisconsin," he says, stretching his feet out on the footrest of his recliner. "They have great cheese and beer."
"Tom," my grandma says from her seat by the fire. She sounds almost offended. "You like them for reasons other than that. Why are you saying that?"
"All right, I do."
I learn over the next hour that Wisconsin doesn't have the talented players Kentucky does, but they play as a team. Kentucky just buys their players, Grandpa says.
I've been listening to my grandpa all day. We drove into Webster to see Brett, the manager at Ace Hardware, who had info for Grandpa about a boat lift for his fishing boat. In the car on the way there I heard a story about Uncle Jerry wrecking his car on the way to prom over thirty years ago.
"Dad," Jerry said when he called my grandpa that night. "I got the car stuck."
Once Grandpa got there, he realized the car wasn't just stuck in a muddy ditch -- it was totaled, and Jerry was at the hospital getting stitches.
Later, as we ate macaroni and cheese and the bread we'd baked, he told me story after story about his friends -- like the best friend from high school who died in his forties, as Grandpa sat by his bedside in the hospital:
"Don't leave, Tom," his friend said. "I'm just going to close my eyes for a minute."
"I won't. I'll be right here."
He passed away minutes later. Grandpa thought he was just sleeping. At the funeral, his friend's ex-wife, two ex-girlfriends, and the nurse who'd fallen in love with him at the hospital all cried together.
He told me about his last phone call with his brother, John, and how after they'd hung up, John had told his wife he was going to read in bed, complained about his back hurting, and then fell over dead. John's friend did the autopsy. I guess that happens in a small town. When Grandpa asked him later if it'd bothered him to cut up his friend, he said "Yes. But I wanted to know what had happened."
It's funny how different the world seems when you're away from all your day-to-day concerns. All those things that make me so anxious and keep me so busy in my ordinary life aren't there today. There are different concerns, different anxieties. Yet sitting with my grandparents, hearing a basketball game on the TV, I still feel like I'm 8 years old, warm, safe, and with nothing too big to worry about.
I'm sitting in the front room at the lake, playing Plants vs. Zombies and listening to my grandpa talk nonstop at the Kentucky vs. Wisconsin game on the television.
"I like Wisconsin," he says, stretching his feet out on the footrest of his recliner. "They have great cheese and beer."
"Tom," my grandma says from her seat by the fire. She sounds almost offended. "You like them for reasons other than that. Why are you saying that?"
"All right, I do."
I learn over the next hour that Wisconsin doesn't have the talented players Kentucky does, but they play as a team. Kentucky just buys their players, Grandpa says.
I've been listening to my grandpa all day. We drove into Webster to see Brett, the manager at Ace Hardware, who had info for Grandpa about a boat lift for his fishing boat. In the car on the way there I heard a story about Uncle Jerry wrecking his car on the way to prom over thirty years ago.
"Dad," Jerry said when he called my grandpa that night. "I got the car stuck."
Once Grandpa got there, he realized the car wasn't just stuck in a muddy ditch -- it was totaled, and Jerry was at the hospital getting stitches.
Later, as we ate macaroni and cheese and the bread we'd baked, he told me story after story about his friends -- like the best friend from high school who died in his forties, as Grandpa sat by his bedside in the hospital:
"Don't leave, Tom," his friend said. "I'm just going to close my eyes for a minute."
"I won't. I'll be right here."
He passed away minutes later. Grandpa thought he was just sleeping. At the funeral, his friend's ex-wife, two ex-girlfriends, and the nurse who'd fallen in love with him at the hospital all cried together.
He told me about his last phone call with his brother, John, and how after they'd hung up, John had told his wife he was going to read in bed, complained about his back hurting, and then fell over dead. John's friend did the autopsy. I guess that happens in a small town. When Grandpa asked him later if it'd bothered him to cut up his friend, he said "Yes. But I wanted to know what had happened."
It's funny how different the world seems when you're away from all your day-to-day concerns. All those things that make me so anxious and keep me so busy in my ordinary life aren't there today. There are different concerns, different anxieties. Yet sitting with my grandparents, hearing a basketball game on the TV, I still feel like I'm 8 years old, warm, safe, and with nothing too big to worry about.