This page is for spinning yarns

“Just because you can solve a crossword puzzle or build an atom bomb doesn't mean that you use your mind. Just as dogs love to chew bones, the mind loves to get its teeth into problems.”  Eckhart Tolle - The Power of Now

There is old story in my family of my maternal Grandfather in the days before he quit drinking. He was still married to my Grandmother at the time. She was awakened late one night by his muttering next to a bottle of vodka while sitting in his reading chair downstairs to their room. In the way I’ve heard the story recanted by my Mother and Aunt in over two decades of Thanksgiving gatherings, my Grandmother reproached him from the stairs with, “Ron! Who are you talking to!?” He quipped, “To myself! It’s the only way I can have an intelligent conversation around here!” We would then chuckle and usually move on to stories of my siblings and I as kids provoking the wrath of my Grandfather’s first Shih Tzu, Wicket. I remember my Grandfather commenting on the story once before his passing. He said in all earnest – “Yeah ...Well, in that house I couldn’t.”  

I’ve been thinking about that story often since about a year and a half ago. I then had a conversation with an attractive and graceful woman a bit older than myself, and was somewhat grandstanding trying to make an impression with her. She acted increasingly disinterested in my talking, and responded during a pause with, “Have you ever heard one should listen twice as much as they speak?” Then completely confused and thrown off cadence, I said I hadn’t, and became quiet. After all, I was only trying to have an intelligent conversation. If not for her, than maybe just for myself.

My Grandfather was fond of words. He spent much of his time in retirement reading newspapers and novels, completing crossword puzzles, and with rapt attention calling-out answers to Jeopardy before bed. He was expert with banter, and could talk for hours with stories of his career and life. I was grateful to get to know the man before his passing, and to carefully take in his clever and charming way of commanding attention. I remember a joke he would sometimes deliver deadpan to impatiently end uninteresting phone calls with mother. He’d say, “It’s nice you got to talk with me. Ookaay, bye.” She would usually cling to the phone, chuckle and mimic back, “Ooookaaay, bye” with a particular harshness. Once off the phone, She’d proclaim, “What a character!” or some other endearment.   

To be continued…

BSG 5-16-26

Of all the money ere I had, I spent it in good company,
And all the harm I’ve ever done, alas was to none but me.
And all I’ve done for want of wit, to memory now I can’t recall.
So fill me to the parting glass, goodnight and joy be with you all.  

-Parting Glass, Traditional