Acquainted

My grandfather's laughter wasn't a complete stranger, but a passing acquaintance. It was spare and sparse, doled out like a prize, and never given freely. A thin smile was the reward for a job well done, an impressive feat, or a particularly clever wordplay or joke. Laughter was a rare sound he could almost remember how to make when conditions were just right.

Smiles and chuckles were easier to earn when light would sparkle on the current running towards the ocean. Sadness was an abstract idea left moored in far away ports when he retired as a stevedore; sadness was an abstract idea left to wither in empty classrooms when she found retirement of her own. They were happy in the years that they walked the sun-dappled banks of a winding Southern river, and sadness was the color of our world when she left us behind. His good humor was laid to rest on an October day that was also their wedding anniversary.

I once asked him why he stopped being a fireman. I think of that conversation every time I pass that fire station in the old historic district of Savannah.

"The smell." That was the only explanation he offered. The only other clue to his reticence was when my mother or father would grill, he'd never come outside until dinner was served and the grill was put away. The man himself didn't own one.

Before retirement, I would stay with them in the second house they ever bought together, where they finished raising one daughter after the eldest had wed and moved on. I can still remember the blue carpet in the dining room and the grapevine that ran the length of the garden in the backyard. Every summer, he'd toil for the spoils of the earth; riches gathered were golden corn and the rubies of vine-ripened tomatoes.

I can vividly recall the slices of tomatoes in contrast to the Fiestaware, freshly creamed corn pooled to turn those slices into red atolls in a yellow sea.

On most of these overnights at their pre-retirement house, I'd wake to find a paper bag of freshly baked donuts. He would have to be at work at some inhumane pre-dawn hour, but he'd always leave just a little earlier than normal so that he could bring donuts back to the house for his grandson. I was always fascinated with the fact that he was there when I'd go to sleep, but then mysteriously gone when I woke up, and I never heard a thing.

I've since walked a mile in his footsteps, having known work that occasionally required inhumane pre-dawn hours. I'm still in awe of his ability to stay awake through the 11 o'clock news and then rise at some mysteriously masochistic time.

He showed affection by doing things. Providing. Entertaining. Not necessarily talking. He'd take me along on trips to the store; I always liked going with him more than going with my grandmother, because she knew the definition of the word "No." He'd always let me come home with something extra, something unnecessary. Something I wanted but never needed; there were always new toys to be had, and I'd leave some of them in the cardboard box I kept at that river house.

On one of these shopping trips, he introduced me to something that, unknown to either of us, would change my life forever. He bought me a Daisy Powerline 860, a BB repeater and a pellet air rifle. It was fairly low-powered, but to a six year old, it was a mighty weapon indeed. He taught me how to use it, he taught me how to respect it. He gave me that rifle, and a little red Swiss-army knife that he got for free with his Old Spice holiday gift pack. I still have both.

I would wander the banks of that river for hours with the knife in my pocket and the rifle in my arms; tin cans and tree trunks trembled and feared my name, and the river herself would let me skip shots like stones.

A decade later, I don't think he was ever as proud of me as when I brought home dinner for the first time using those skills he first taught me on those banks. I think that laughter is what's kept in a bottle in my memory, and I open it from time to time.

Stoicism. Self-reliance. Organization. These lessons he taught me by example, and everything combined with what he taught me with that Daisy to help make the man I am. All of these skills are some of the reasons why I'm still here today, and others aren't.

It wasn't until years after he left that river for good that his laughter became as much of a stranger to me as I became to him, but the memory remains.