I am my own grandpa

Like most people I had two grandfathers, my father’s father and my mother’s stepfather. I had two very different relationships with these two men. My grandfather Turnbull, my father’s father is my own blood relative. I am named after him. My middle name Earl was his first name. I am very proud of that. I have very fond memories of him; on one knee holding his thumb between his forefingers saying “I got your nose.’” Somewhere there is a photo of us; taken on my parent’s front lawn. He is leaning on a rock hammer and I am pulling a plastic dump truck be bought me, on a string. Granddad had just demolished a boulder the size of a Volkswagen with that hammer and a bucket of water. He first built a fire around the rock (something you could never do in Halifax today) then he threw a bucket of cold water on the hot rock and it split into pieces. He broke the pieces up with the hammer and the huge rock went away. He was not a big man but he could take a big problem and make it go away with that kind of determined effort his generation took for granted. He was a gold miner so it was second nature to him to go right through solid rock.
I haven’t seen the actual photo for years. I have searched for it every year when I am home. But the image goes with me everywhere I go. We distinguished (my siblings and I) between the two men by what we called them. Grandfather Turnbull was granddad. Grandfather Lewis was grampy. Even though there is no blood between us I am proud of him too. He built boats with his bare hands. In his younger days he built thirty to forty footers. Cape Islanders they were called. He built them in shops barely big enough to hold them. I never saw him work on big boats but I watched my Uncle Andrew build similar boats and I was in awe of these me who turned living trees into living boats that would flex with the waves and bring their crews home safely on those savage north Atlantic storms.
But there was always a distance between Grampy and me and my siblings. In his old age he built little boats, many in glass cabinets. They were models of boats that he had built for real when he was young. Just like he had years before; he built the smaller models with care and patience. True; no one’s life depended on it any more, or did it… Maybe his life somehow depended on it. The detail on the good ones was incredible. He would look for tiny pieces to fashion the rigging; the davits, the life boats and the portholes. He sculpted and painted window putty the exact color green of an angry Atlantic. The models seemed to pitch and roll as their bigger brethren had. He breathed life into these tiny models as he had built flexibility into the full size boats that allowed them to survive the gale.

When I first typed the moniker “grampy” it came up in red. Windows™ did not recognize it as a word. It suggested some possibilities; the first among them was “grumpy”. Now this is particularly poignant and this was a nickname we used for grampy sometimes, under our breath of course, me and my siblings. It was not meant in mean spirits but it reflected our frustration with him as he dealt with his frustration with us. In the summers my parents would take a week and we would drive to Yarmouth; where my grampy and grammy lived. My mother’s mother was a wonderful lady. She was short and round and we loved to visit her. She always had ice cream for us from Cook’s dairy in two quart bricks that you sliced with a knife usually strawberry and served with fresh berries. In those days ice cream was still made with cream; it was wonderful. I remember her eating lemon wafers and drinking what she called “White Rose Tea” which was hot water and milk. When we stayed with them grampy would stay in the porch and build boats. We were not allowed to move. He would get agitated if we broke his concentration. In time we took to camping when we visited grammy and grumpy.
The problem with grandparents is that they tend to leave you before you are old enough to truly appreciate them and I think this was the case with grampy Lewis. I now have a hobby; an avocation (writing) that takes a good deal of concentration… Oh bother what is that noise. “Hey you kids, why don’t you play in someone else’s yard?’” Where was I … Oh yeah, writing takes a good deal on concentration, train of thought you know… “Oh for Pete’s sake… Hey you kids I’m trying to work; don’t you have parents?” I think in time I would have grown to understand grampy and his need for peace and quiet. “HEY KIDS QUIET!!!” I mean he was just a guy who had worked hard all his life who wanted to make a statement about his life and values and …

Oh my God! I am my own grandpa!