Conversations With My 97.5 Year Old Grandfather (Gramp): Guest Post!

From Lloyd:

I called my grandfather today to see what he was up to. He lives in Maine where he was born and raised. In fact he has never lived outside of a 6 mile radius of the town of Thomaston. Anyway when I asked him what was new, he said “Well, I’ve been eye-balling the big birch tree that I planted next to the house 70 years ago and decided that if a strong enough west wind ever blew it could push that old buzzard into my house”. I pretty much expected to hear what came out next knowing that old coot as well as I do. He went on to say “So I grabbed my ladder and a rope and climbed up the side of the tree and tied off the rope about 2/3 of the way up and then tied the other end of the rope to a spruce tree about 50’ away. Then I grabbed my come-along and got some pretty good tension on that rope. Then I grabbed my chainsaw and after cutting about half way through I went back over to the spruce tree and gave that come-along a couple more cranks. Finally I finished cutting and that tree landed exactly where I wanted it to. I cut it up into 16” pieces for firewood and tried to split it with a maul but the darn stuff was too damn gnarly so I had to use a hydraulic splitter.”

With that I asked him what else was new and he said “The grackles are getting pretty thick and I may have to declare war on them again,” which means picking them off with his .22 rifle out the window. Finally, it was time to end this short conversation so I asked him, “What are you doing tomorrow” he said “Well, I thought I would drive the truck over to Wes’s house (his 72 year old son) and give him a hand splitting the 10 cord of fire wood sitting in his back yard”.

Before we hung up he told me to “keep my powder dry” and to “hang in there boy” and “I love you and Anna, Weston , Shane, and Tori”. With that I hung up the phone realizing that this guy has seriously skewed the life-cycle “Bell Curve” and hoped to see him in 9 months.