I seem to have this need for my grandboys to remember me as being outstanding in some physical way, because boys are all about physical strengths. The problem is, I never did have many physical strengths to begin with, and what I did have are pretty well all gone. So I'm going to tell you my story about my search to bring this about, over the years.
Caylie is my only granddaughter. She's a freshman at OBU now. We just love having her at Arkadelphia. But Caylie is a lady, rarely impressed by one's physical exploits. So, I just never felt the need to impress her with my physical strengths. And, she runs half marithons, and is a skydiver What could I do physically to impress a half marithoner, and a skydiver? Nothing, that's what.
The grand boys are totally different. All four of them. Christian is the oldest, fifteen, weighing in at 192 with no fat, six feet tall, so I know better than to try to impress him with most physical things. Afraid he might impress me with his own physical things. But years ago, when he was much younger, I did impress him with my ability to start a fire out in the woods, under any weather conditions, using only a match and natural things available out in the woods. That impressed him. I also showed him how to start a campfire with flint and steel, and he just grabbed onto that one and worked and worked at it until he had mastered that too. When he was much younger, he and I were sitting around a campfire one night. I have to make a confession here, I occasionally have a small chew of tobacco. But I was still trying to conceal it from him. I didn't think he would be greatly impressed by that fact, and he never has been. Anyway, as we were sitting there spitting into the fire, as everyone worth their salt does in that situation, Christian just had to know. “Papaw, how come when I spit, it's clear. But you can spit brown. Now, why is that?” Well, I wasn't ready yet to tell him that whole story, he would find out soon enough. “Son, you have to reach way down into your lungs and bring it up from real deep to get to the brown stuff.” Christian started working at it. He just went deeper and deeper, just wore himself out. Couldn't do it. But he continued working on that for some time. He soon figured that whole thing out on his own.
Jordan and Jackson are brothers, and both are rough and tumble boys. They get a lot of experience at it, fighting like cats and dogs. All day. Every day. After coming home from two hours of wrestling.
I just feel like my grandsons should carry memories of me around when they are older, and I 'm pushing up daisies, as a strong, fast, or tough old man. But it's too late. I can't impress them with my speed, I can barely get out of a good fast jog. On a good day. Strength, I never did have much of that. That just leaves tough.
We were sitting in their house one night, several years ago. I told them I would give them one shot each at pulling on the long hair on my forearm. I've got a lot of it. My “kids” at our orphanage we worked at in Africa often said, “Uncle Pat is like Esau.” They both pulled as hard as they could. Though I was screaming inside, I just sat there and took it, never changed my expression. After that, they often said, “Papaw is the strongest man in the world. He's even stronger than Daddy.” Well, their father Mickey is about the strongest man I know. He could easily snap me like a twig, so I just wallowed in their admiration. Lately, the youngest, Carson, now six, got his shot at my forearm hair. But he somehow had it figured out. He didn't pull straight out, as the older ones did. He just grabbed a good handful of hair, leveraged his fist some way against my arm to get an unfair advantage of me, and pulled out a whole handful of hair. I've decided its about time to retire that one. But I kept a straight face the whole time. I'm proud about that.
Two or three years ago, they all got into a big gunfight with those air soft guns (they shoot plastic BB's, unlike the metal kind) at my house, wearing goggles. I watched closely. Those plastic pellets went a long way, but you could follow the path of the pellet all the way out, so I knew they didn't pack a big punch. So I took advantage of that opportunity to impress. I put on goggles, and gave each of them five free shots at my face at about fifteen feet. Only one, right on the ear, stung a long time, but they were all impressed. I worked very hard at never moving or blinking. That's the key.
Barbara and I looked after Jordan and Jackson this week, and our main job was to keep them from killing each other. They now had a new, up to date, and obviously much improved model of the air soft gun, a pistol. Jordan was ragging Jackson about crying when he got shot in the back with it a few days ago, and that impressed me, because our family motto for a long time had been, If Jackson cries, call 911. For good reason. He just almost never cries from pain.
Well, I saw a new way to impress the grand boys. I watched them shoot it a couple of times, and though I could never follow the pellet when they shot it, I just assumed it was because it would soon be dark. I backed off ten feet or so, turned my back, raised my shirt, told them to each shoot me in the back. Well, this turned out to be a whole different gun. Jack shot me, and the blood started flowing, though it didn't penetrate much. They were impressed. Well, I still had one more shot to take, and there was just no way I was going to destroy that image of being the world's toughest Papaw that I had spent years building up in my grandsons. I turned around, told Jordan to take his best shot. He did, and it felt like it hit even harder, but at least no blood. Just a big bruise. I never reacted outwardly to either shot, though inwardly I was bawling like a baby. That's was enough of that for that day. My reputation was now reinforced in blood.
The boys went upstairs, and I went to the kitchen for a long knife. I called Jackson down, handed him the knife. Told him that bullet could still be in my back, possibly, and I couldn't reach my back to dig it out. I told him I was going to lie down, and, since he's the one who pulled the trigger, stick that knife in that hole about half an inch and dig that bullet out. Tough as he was, Jackson turned white as a sheet. While he was still in the white state, I took back the knife, told him I would let him off.
When we all go to the State Fair together, I let the boys pick out the baddest ride on the place, then ride that with one of them. That's all I ride. Always with a big smile on my face, flaunting the “no hands” thing. When I get off, I always get out of their sight as quickly as possible. In case I have to throw up. Where carnival rides are concerned, Carson, just six remember, takes the cake. He's still very small, yet he begs to ride all of them. He managed to get on one this year that he should not have been on in the first place, and the bar did not fit tight enough to hold him. He got slung all over that cage.
So, all you Grandpa's out there, remember if you're weak and can't run, like me, you can still impress the grand boys in physical things. The key is to show absolutely no reaction to pain, then you can go in the bathroom. And have a good cry.
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