When Grandpa Could Fly
By Beverly Greene
By Beverly Greene
NOTE: This story is protected by international copyright laws and may NOT be reproduced in any form without the author's expressed written permission.
When I was five, my grandpa was Superman. He didn't look like a superhero with his chubby round face framed by an arc of vanishing white hair and his powder blue jeep was hardly a flowing red cape, but it was all the same to me.
"Hey snaggle-tooth, wanna go for a drive?" Grandpa called out during one of my many weekend visits. Always ready for an adventure with Grandpa, I hopped in - riding shotgun with Superman. Off we went down the dirt road and onto the highway into town. He pointed to a ditch and recounted with a smile the time Mom, only about five herself, lost one of her dress shoes during a walk to the store and didn't bother to mention that fact until they got home. He swore that he had to walk through a mile of snow at least as high as I was tall to find that little shoe.
When we arrived at Grandpa's favorite restaurant, an old-style drive-in, we went to the window where we could see the huge fiery pits bellowing black smoke. We ordered three of the best BBQ sandwiches in the world with fries and rushed home before they got cold. Sitting tall and proud, I was the navigator. Grandpa always seemed to need my help to remember the way.
"James, you need to drive me to the grocery store" Grandma called out during another visit. No shotgun this time - I sat in the back pouting over my misfortune - driving Ms Gracie, who was never very fun to be around. As soon as we arrived, I ran over to our favorite bench alongside the store and Grandpa called to me from a vending machine, "Hey snaggle-tooth, want some wine? It'll put some hair on your chest!"
After the obligatory "Ewww, grandpa! I don't want no hair on my chest! I'm a GIRL!" I sipped the Cherry Wine pop and, looking as grown-up as possible, listened to Grandpa chat about the weather and crops and other such grown-up matters with the other graying grocery store refugees.
Back home, Grandpa waved towards Grandma's garden and laughed. "You know, when your sister was even younger than you are now, just knee-high to a blue jay she got in some trouble over something or other I can't 'member now. Well, sure enough she come running out here and plopped right down in the middle of that cabbage patch - ass-end up! Me and Gracie both laughed so hard we forgot about punishing her. When we asked her what she was doing in there like that and she said, 'I was hiding! If I can't see you, you can't see me!'"
That night in Grandpa's room I pointed and asked, "What's that, Grandpa?" He took the shiny frame off the wall, sat on the edge of his bed and explained again what each colorful medal meant. (I never asked how he won those medals and he never offered.) Then, he got up and took a slightly misshapen silver ring out of a small wooden box on his dresser and told me again how he'd made it out of an airplane propeller.
Time moves differently for the young. I found new heroes to tickle my fleeting fancy which seemed to change as often as my height and Grandpa found that all the years of saving stray Sunday-best shoes from blizzards brought only prostrate cancer and all that steel bending left him with only a bothersome hernia. With no one left to be a superhero to, dinner-seeking adventures with his favorite sidekick turned into games of solitaire at the kitchen table.
"Hey snaggle-tooth! You're still the ugliest girl I ever did see!" Wiggling fingers under his chubby chin, reminiscent of some TV character, beckoned a witty response sure to start another playful insult match. "See ya, Grandpa" was all I said as I ran out the kitchen door, in a hurry to do the things newly "big" kids do.
One rainy afternoon, I joined Grandpa at the kitchen table and asked, "Wanna show me how to play that game?" only out of a kid's entertainment-junkie desperation. "Maybe later." was all he said, never looking up from his deck of faded blue cards.
Grandpa's been gone for years and now, all grown up, I'd give anything to be five, missing my front teeth, and riding shotgun again with the man I was sure could fly.
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� 2001 Beverly Greene owns all rights to this original story.
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