The Story of Me: In Grandparents

Growing up I had 3 grandparents. I'll have to save the stories about Gramma and Grampa (my dad's parents) for another day, cause this is already going to be long and self-indulgent. I'm going to talk about my Poppa Ryan (my mom's dad.)

My mother's mother died before we were born, from breast cancer. Now... these grandparents were no saints either. My grandfather (or "Poppa" as we called him, to distinguish him from Grampa) was an alcoholic, and messed up as a father in many ways. When I got older I saw more and more of his faults of course. But we lived in separate cities most of my life, so when he did pass away I could easily forget the negative and beatify him. He was THE PERFECT GRANDFATHER.

My mother and her dad.

My grandfather started life on a farm, and somehow worked his way round to English Lit professor at the University of Alberta, and had a distinguished career there. He was in school at Berkeley at one point, and somewhere in there WWII interrupted his schooling. His PhD actually came as an honorary degree from Concordia.



He turned out to be a pretty elegant, worldly chap. He was sleek and fit (swam every day), knew his way around the kitchen, had a home full of books, and decorated with Exotic Artefacts (and fake grapes.)

Here's the fireplace.
My mother has just had my brother.
She is, like, 17? 18 years old? Shiver.

He would take me and/or my brother to the Faculty Club for lunch, which seemed like an Exceedingly Elegant and Tasteful place to have lunch. It was just a cafeteria, but we would sit with the other old professors, and bask in the attention of being The Wonderful Grandchildren.

He was very witty, and would tell great stories and jokes. He had big wooden masks on his bedroom wall (my brother has them now), and a kimono given to him by the wife of the Japanese ambassador, and a nice 1940s tuxedo and bowler hat (which he gave me), and a REAL HULA SKIRT. I would stand at his closet and just stare, gap-mouthed, at this huge grass skirt. I lurved that skirt. He also had a statue of frolicking satyr in his livingroom, which was the butt of many jokes, and which we all loved. Also there were fake grapes, which for some reason I also loved.

I didn't tell you about the blocks.
The Blocks. That he made and we lurved.

He was the first person I knew to own a microwave oven. And he had a freezer full of meat pies and fruit pies from his neighbor's bakery. If you went down into the basement, it was another world. My Uncle the Underachiever lived there. It was ugly and cigaretty, but this was where the old 70s porn mags were to be found.

Poppa had a cat named Pizzicato. He was a lovely Siamese, but not very friendly (which I hated because I lurved the kittitude). My bro and I later learned it was probably because he was getting high with the Underachieving Uncle and had likely fried his brain cells.

I would stay in the flowery room. It had a huge window, and flowered bedsheet curtains, which have so imprinted themselves on me that not only do I now own them, but I will never want a bedroom in any other colours than pale blue and mauve. This is also where the Canterbury Tale pictures were hung (which I now have.) My grandfather was so good at telling The Wife of Bath's prologue.

At the end of the hall was the room my brother stayed in. There was a portrait of some great or great-great grandmother, but somehow both Pablo and I misunderstood that it was our grandmother (which shows we knew nothing about fashion), and therefore formed an out-of-proportion sentimental attachment to it.

A lot of my memories come from one particular summer when I was staying with my mum (I lived in another province), but she had to work so I'd stay with my grandfather during the day. He would set me up with scrap paper for drawing and writing stories on, and then he would leave me to amuse myself, checking up periodically to bring me a cup of hot carob, or take me to the Faculty Club. This is when I really got into THE BOOKS. There were books all over the house. I had finally discovered the cupboard full of books in the boy bedroom, and I clearly remember sitting there, partly playing with my Barbie, and partly poring over Oscar Wilde's Salome, and histories of Pompeii and the Roman games.

That was when my grandfather dug out an old copy of Oscar's collected plays, and my Life Was Changed Forever. He also gave me my first Shakespeares. My Dante with the Doré illustrations. The Plays Pleasant of Bernard Shaw. And my first copy of Cyrano de Bergerac.

We didn't watch much TV there, but I recall a little MASH while waiting for him to make supper. He also had the old Bill Cosby albums (of young Cosby), which we memorized.

I have no memories of my grandfather ever showing annoyance with me, or seeming to be tired of my company. It's pretty cool to have ONE person in your life of whom you can make such a claim. I'm sure my brother has the same impression.

And all this is to say... that if there is one ideal home in my mind, it's my grandfather's house. I couldn't be happier than if I owned that exact house (but um NOT in Edmonton), with all its original furnishings. In my memory it's a sort of Museum of An Idealized Childhood, and the birthplace of my love for literature. Unfortunately my mother had to redecorate it in order to sell it, and I don't think she has Before pictures. In any case, so many of the things I love or hate about homes come from that house--it totally formed my taste.

The patio. Me eating corn, my cousin in chair.
I liked my cousin. Don't know where he is now.
Maybe robbing banks.
I believe that's his dad in the pic, the Overachieving Brother,
not the Underachieving one. But I could be wrong.