Come Autumn Wind

Come Autumn Wind

A loving tribute to Grandpa Ray—

This was written in January of 1980 when Grandpa was nearly eighty-eight years old, two and a half years before he passed away. It was part reflection and part tribute to a man who was sixty-nine when I was born. There is a bit of nostalgia coupled with bittersweet memories of things gone that cannot be any more. It is told mostly in the present tense because Grandpa was still alive when I wrote this.

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He is a tired old man, having live beyond his peers and most of his family. He was old when I first met him more than eighteen years ago. He is beyond age now, even though he prides himself for being an octogenarian for over eight years. But beneath that shriveling shell is my Grandpa.

He has often told me that there used to be a time that he could do the things that he wanted to do: play baseball, as well as going hunting and fishing. He still fishes occasionally, even though it is all that he can do to start the boat or bait the hook. Years ago when he and Grandma were living in Arbuckle, he took us fishing on the Sacramento River. The sun was hidden behind the trees along the river bank and a playful breeze tugged at our caps. Grandpa caught a couple salmon, my Mom and Dad each caught one, and I caught some river moss with my bamboo cane and lead sinker.

After my grandparents moved to their present home near Vacaville almost fifteen years ago, Grandpa tried to teach me how to play baseball. He seldom said that I swung the bat right or threw the ball correctly. (According to him, I threw it like a “sissy.”) We had many such sessions, and often he became disgusted at me and took the ball from my Dad's hands. Dad had been lobbing easy pitches over home plate. He stepped aside as Grandpa tried to pitch it to me but then cursed his hands and apologized to me for his arthritis. We went back inside shortly after that, and the ever present wind slammed the door hard behind me.

Grandpa had this old Polaroid camera that he used to bring out of his room to take “special pictures” of his grandchildren. On one such occasion he had Grandma take a picture of the three generations. Grandpa was at one end; my Dad was in the center, towering over both of us; and I was on the other end, wearing a plastic nose with phony, black plastic glasses. My Mom said that with the nose on me there was some faint resemblance between Grandpa and me. Grandma chuckled.

Grandpa and Grandma live in a Senior Citizen Community where there is a pool and recreation area in their Town Center. This was only for the residents and their guests. Grandma took us swimming nearly every time we visited in the summer. Grandpa came along only a few times—but never without his camera.

Most of his afternoons are now spent sleeping on top of the big double bed in his room. He sleeps alone at night because after an ear operation some years back, he found out that Grandma snores. His room exists as a relic of antiquity. It is well lit and brightly painted yellow. Yet I never enter it without thinking of an old photograph—yellow and fading, too brittle to touch. At the foot of the bed is Grandma's treadle sewing machine, still in nearly perfect condition. A small wicker basket stands between it and the door. A large dresser crouches in the corner by the window, resting on carved and curled feet. It too radiates a yellow glow. Above the dresser is a mirror that doubles the trophies and old portraits on its top. The wall behind the bed sports three pictures: a small photo of the inside of a log cabin; three dachshund puppies, momentarily stopped in their romping; and a flock of Canadian geese, lifting off from the catkins of a small lake—their bodies and those of the hunters in the boat are silhouetted against the first pinks and reds of an Autumn dawn. Between the door and the closet there are three small shelves upon which he keeps the mementos of a lifetime: one or two twenty-two shells; a key with scribbled writing on a disintegrating piece of paper hanging beside it; some loose change; fading pictures of vacation and fishing trips; a few worn books; a stack of poker chips; a Prince Albert tobacco can; a big, five battery flashlight, which my Dad said could double as a billy club; and a cigarette lighter.

When my family and I visited Grandma and Grandpa one day last Autumn, Grandma greeted us at the door with a hug and a kiss for each of us. My Dad went into Grandpa's room to wake him up. Dad walked out and Grandpa stumbled out later, his shirt unbuttoned over his muscle man undershirt, and his hair uncombed but very full and very white. Grandma tried to tidy him up but he brushed her aside and with slurred speech he went through the ritual of greeting us individually with a firm but unsteady handshake or a wobbly hug. He then walked over to his chair, sat down, and then tried to button his shirt. He didn't succeed so Grandma had to get up and help him, gently admonishing him that he should have let her help him in the first place.

I think that my favorite room in their house is the back porch which Grandpa enclosed about ten years ago. (Fathom that: In his late seventies, Grandpa laid cinder block, placed windows, and re-roofed the structure.) The room with the three outside walls studded with windows is big, expansive, and airy in spite of the stale cigarette smoke that lingers in the rug and the walls. He built a large cabinet next to the sliding glass door from the house. The cabinet contained odds and ends like a game of scrabble or the extra leaves to the dining room table. But on the four or five shelves screwed to the outside of it are his toys. For the past fifteen years or so, come birthday or Christmas, somebody almost always gave him a new wind-up or battery operated toy: Like the bartender that mixes a drink, drinks it, then turn red with smoke pouring out of his ears; or the dog that barks, walks, sits, and raises its leg on command; or the haggard old prune face that hangs on the wall and yodels when you pull its tie. Grandpa always got a kick out of watching his grandchildren play with his toy dog when it was new. His face lit up with a big smile and he nodded his head encouragingly when we looked over at him.

This particular evening, Grandma offered us cookies and milk; Grandpa offered us dinner. But the rest of the late afternoon was spent talking about relatives, old friends, or politics. Some time after five o'clock, we said our good-byes after insisting that we needed to get home before it grew completely dark. Grandpa stayed seated in his chair, saying some last minute advice to us and finishing an argument that had been forgotten in the course of the afternoon. We walked past the window where he sat facing the door. I caught his eye and he smiled. Just then the chilling breeze of Autumn rustled the dying leaves in the tree.

Grandpa & Grandma ten years before this essay.