Grumplestiltskin

There was a bar adjacent to my grandparent’s family room. It had two tall stools in front of it that held great peril in that irresistible siren song of climbable household peaks. There is something about an unsteady and unstable piece of furniture that calls to children and compels them to risk life and limb and possibly blood blisters on their baby lips in order to conquer them. I was powerless against the stools.


I didn’t dare go near them when my grandfather was home. He was an imposing figure. I don’t remember him ever not being bald, and he had a ruddy complexion that gave away his father’s origins in Boyle, Ireland. He would stand behind that bar and smoke his pipe, wafting distinctly fruity smoke throughout the house. Leaning with his wire rimmed glasses three quarters down the bridge of his nose, he read the paper and surveyed the family with keenly critical eyes. The gaze was unparalleled in its judgment and ruthlessness.

When he was out, I haunted those stools. I perched myself, and greedily took in the contents of that bar, knowing that my time for study came sparingly. On the right wall were several shelves holding cocktail glasses, Guinness coasters boasting our family name, and a brown monkey with ivory white teeth that was carved out of a coconut. I felt terrible urgency to hold that monkey. Always, but always, on top of that bar was a matchbook with the words “Aim High – Air Force” printed on the outside. He must have had hundreds of those matchbooks. Aim High.

I grew up knowing that my grandfather had retired from the military and was working his second career at Lockheed. Later, when I knew what the military actually was, I found out he had served in the Air Force. Still later, I was told he served in the Army Air Corps in WW2 and had been stationed on Saipan. He was a navigator. He didn’t readily speak of his time during the war, but as he got older, Parkinson’s disease weakened his defenses, and he became less steadfast in his intimidation and more forthcoming with details. Sometimes he talked about how terrified he had been heading out on missions. He would sit and munch on peanuts to distract himself and when the flak would get really thick, he would forget to swallow them. That visual always stuck with me.

Long after he died, I was researching my family history and came across a source for military personnel records and his name was listed. I sent away for the file and made another discovery about my grandfather. Reading through the paperwork, I learned that he had actually trained as a pilot, before becoming a navigator. It turns out he had a mishap and crashed a plane on landing. The photo showed some nose damage, but not much. It was because of this incident that he was drummed out of pilot training, not for the damage from the crash, but because he got out of the plane and proceeded to kick the shit out of it with that same temper I got to know forty years later as he leaned on that bar in his family room.


**from the archives. (Happy Veteran’s Day!)