Graf 9

I love to go to antique car shows. Not that I go very often, but when I do, it transports me to another time; my childhood and my dearly departed grandfather. Grampa owned a Model A Ford, two-door with two front seats and a bench seat in the back. You had to crawl over the front seat to get into the back. I don't know when he obtained the car; it seemed to always be there, like Grampa, when I was growing up. I have an old black and white picture of my father, his older brother and two older sisters hanging out of the car when they were young, so Grampa had it for quite a while. That car was versatile; it hauled kids, potatoes, firewood and just about anything else you could imagine.

Grampa came to this country as a young man, from Lithuania. He didn't speak English and learned what he knew from a job at a lumber camp, so his English was more expletives than the king's English. But he had a good heart and would help anyone in need. Our family lived across the road from Grampa and I remember one rainy day when the bridge below our house washed out. My mother asked my grandfather if he would pick us up from school in the old Model A. I was probably about 9 or 10 at the time. My sister and I thought it was great fun to ride in the car, no one else in town had one like it. We asked him to honk the horn. Aa-ooo-ga, aa-ooo-ga, the horn would bellow and we would laugh at the reactions of our friends. All eyes were on us and we enjoyed the attention.

As I got older, I am ashamed to say, that attention became unwanted. Most teenagers don't want to appear different from their peers and I was no exception. I was kind of skinny and awkward and not part of the "in"crowd, so tried to draw as little attention to myself as possible. But my grandfather continued to ride through town in the Model A, honking the horn and yelling out the window, "Get a haircut!" and a few other choice words to any boy with hair below his ears. It became an embarassment to me. One day, I was coming around an isle at the local Shop-N-Save where to my horror, I saw my grandfather with his arm around my high school History teacher's shoulder, admonishing him with, "Johnny, Johnny, Johnny, you need a haircut!" Mr. Glover seemed to know my grandfather and looked rather bemused by it all, but I quickly retreated down another isle before Grampa could spot me. I was so humiliated and my relationship with my grandfather became cold and aloof.

Now I look back on those times and feel ashamed that I let my discomfort get in the way of my relationship with Grampa. He was very good to our family, providing a home when we had none and putting up with our family's idiosyncrasies; but when you are young and self-absorbed, you don't always think of another's perspective. Since Grampa died, I have had a chance to think about what it must of been like to come to a country where you know no one and don't speak the language. What it must be like to take care of your wife who has Alzheimer's and doesn't recognize you anymore. What it was like to be determined incompetent to drive and have to give up your license and your beloved Model A. And now, when I see an antique car, I am filled with nostalgia about my grandfather and try to remember the times when I was young and less self conscience.