Thanks Jack

Grandpa's in town and I swear to God, every time he opens his mouth it's the saddest story you've ever heard. What he talks of doesn't even have to be sad for it to weigh. At breakfast this morning he went on & on about an Oak side table he carved and shellacked the year he graduated 8th grade, '33.

Years before, he would drive up the east coast in his white Ford truck while listening to Harry Belafonte's Greatest Hits with a comfortable supply of Werther's Originals within reach. He found solace along the way at Cracker Barrels & Waffle Houses, but then there was always the less homely northern stretch. Grandpa is a nomad by right, still unsettled, unsettling in his speech, his mind like a tack when recalling years, his tired ambition to trace our family's mutt genealogy. All of it must get so lonely.

I am learning how to sympathize with his reverence for the past but what matters is that he is here now. Presently, he is seated under the cape of our open garage, comfortable in front of his ice cream maker. Once a year for 19 years (even while buckling the stretches of America under his big, shiny belt), he has made vanilla ice cream for my summer birthday, and has not yet missed one.

When he used to drive to us, my brother and I would stand on the porch and wave our tired little arms until he rounded the corner to go. Funny how time brings a role reversal where we are no longer the ones to wave. But no matter, the road is life.