Grandfather's Legacy

Things I learned from from/about my grandfather, briefly.

There once was a man from Dundee
Who was fucking an ape in a tree.
The results were most horrid:
All ass and no forehead,
Three balls and a purple goatee!
(Apparently, the penchant for dirty jokes is a family heirloom- see more)

* While studying at Indiana University, he was a member of the Delta Tau Delta fraternity chapter there. He may have even been president of the chapter at one point in his college career.


* To this day, doctors and nurses in Cincinnati still remember and revere him as a highly respected and skilled thoracic surgeon, who put in the first pacemaker of the city.


* Graeter's Ice Cream- chocolate with butterscotch topping, if one must put a point on it- is one of life's enduring pleasures, no matter what age or level of awareness, one can always enjoy it.


* Even twenty years after her death, and probably more than thirty since they divorced, my grandfather still, in his way, loves and respects my grandmother.


* It is a horrible thing to lose touch with reality away from your home and loved ones, with the dread and sense that when you die, it will be someplace that smells of talc, piss, disinfectant, and cafeteria food. No amount of stars awarded for best care facility can block out such fears.

* No matter how much we fucked up, fucked over, or are fucked up by our family, there is nothing else that compares to their presences at the end of our days. They are, in spite of all, the best comfort and most potent solace for our souls when our lives have burned down and gutter into the last days of light.

"Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying of nothing."- Redd Foxx