Grandpa

My childhood is riddled with images of my paternal grandfather. I’ve been told my first babysitter was my paternal grandparents, growing up I spent countless hours there, and every holiday, no matter how small the family gathered at my grandparents.

            My grandfather was the epitome of a patriarch. His word was law. (No matter how hard my father tried to not follow it.) He was also very opinionated. The funny thing is he wasn’t overly obvious about his opinions. He didn’t voice them loudly or frequently. But they were there nonetheless. For example, he had strong opinions on what were appropriate toys for boys and girls. Boys played with cars, action figures, and played sports. Girls played with dolls, Barbies, and other girly things. It took four years of me asking for a remote control car for Christmas before I realized this fact. Every year I asked, barring one, my younger brother received the remote control car he asked for, while I received the other “girl appropriate” gifts I had requested.

            My grandfather was born Hooper Ray Winningham Jr, October 22^nd 1939 in Overton Tennessee. By 1956 he was living in Dayton, Oh and was either married or about to marry. He grew up in Tennessee, on his family’s farm. My grandma used to tell us how when she and grandpa where young, they didn’t have neighbors. They had to walk miles to school, and had chores around the farm. Mail was as good as Christmas. He was raised with southern values. I think this is where his gender roles came from, and a few of his other beliefs. “[…] Southerners tend to hold more conservative opinions on women in politics and employed women.” (Rice and Coates, 744)

My father was born in 1957, and is the oldest of my grandpa’s children. My grandpa was a few years older than my grandma. When my grandma had my dad she was 16. He was 18. They had five children who lived past infancy, all boys, one died not long after turning 18. They had I think three children who died in infancy, no long after birth, two of which were girls, one was another boy. One of the five living sons died not long after turning 18. I believe my grandparents loved each other very much, and they lived together until his death December 26^th 2001.

My grandfather was a racist. It mostly came from the time he was raised in, and where. Again with his other opinions, it was not overly obvious, (or at least to me) at first. Throughout my childhood, I never realized it consciously. It wasn’t until I was 10 and my cousin Nikki was dating an African American guy. She’d just had her second child, and the four of them came to the family thanksgiving. Or I should say attempted to come. Grandpa didn’t yell, he didn’t holler, didn’t disrupt the holiday in any noticeable way unless you knew what to look for. Us grandkids knew something was up. But the adults were conspiring to keep us out of what was going on. It was years before I found out exactly what went on that night.

Grandpa had told Nikki her and the girls were welcome, but her husband (or boyfriend, I don’t remember if they were married or not) was not to set foot in the house. Nikki disregarded what grandpa said and tried to get him into the house anyway. Grandpa refused. From what I’ve been told in the years since, grandpa said “That nigger is not setting foot in here. He can wait in the car. But he ain’t coming in.”. All of this occurred after my aunt, mom, uncle, and dad had ushered the kids down into the basement. Nikki took a couple plates of food and left. She didn’t come to a single holiday after that until 5 years after grandpa died. Even then, she never tried to bring her (now) husband or the father of her second child, into my grandparent’s house.

This always upset me. Some of my closest friends are or have been African American and I was horrified when I realized my grandfather was racist. I lost a little respect for him. But now I’ve realized, his racism was a result of where he came from, and it didn’t mean that I should respect him any less. I just had to learn to deal with it. I couldn’t change him, and I wouldn’t want to. His racism showed me what I didn’t want to be like. Changing him would have completely rewritten my childhood, and I like who my childhood has turned me into.

The one exception to the gender roles my grandfather believed in was sports. He encouraged my cousin Lauren and I to play softball, and any other sport we wanted. He bought us bikes, and rollerblades. However, he never once watched either of us play. I think that was his way of keeping the gender roles, but still supporting us by listening to our accounts of the games.  He watched every one of my cousin Byron’s baseball games, many of my brother’s, my other cousin Michael, and Ricky’s football.

Once when I was about eight, my grandparents came to watch me and my brother play, (in truth, they were there to see my brother, but I was playing at the same time) my grandmother came to watch me, while my grandpa watched my brother. About the third inning, my team was on the field, I was out in right field, or maybe it was one of the times I was at second, (I was on the right side of the field, giving me a perfect view of what happens next) my grandfather comes walking over. The only way to get to the younger girls softball field was to walk down a narrow path between the older girls diamond, and the minor B (the next step up from coach pitch) boy’s field. I watched him walk over to my grandma, who was sitting in a folding blue and white striped lawn chair. He spoke to her for a minute, and she shook her head. He must have insisted, and grandma caved. He walked off, but not before smiling out at me in right field, or second, and waved. Grandma waited until the third out, and I was in the dugout. She smiled sadly at me, told me I was doing a good job, but she was going to watch Josh now, “to be fair”. 

            I remember being a bit confused, but really thought nothing of it. It wasn’t until my mom apologized in the car, that I began to see what had happened. This is not to say my grandfather was being mean, he simply believed what he believed, and that was that. He loved me; I was one of his favorites. So, it was nothing against me.

For years I buried this memory. It wasn’t until after my grandpa’s death that it resurfaced. When it appeared in my memories, I wasn’t sure it’d happened. I asked my mom, and she told me it had happened. She described the same scene that occurs in my memory, although I suspect she knows what grandpa said to grandma that day, she was sitting next to grandma. I was angry when the memory resurfaced. I couldn’t understand. I was hurt, and I couldn’t even confront grandpa about it because he was dead. I felt cheated, and like I wasn’t worthy of him watching me play. It wasn’t until a few years after he died that I realized he didn’t do it to be mean, or to hurt my feelings. It was simply his way of holding onto his beliefs. It didn’t make me any less angry, but at least I understood it wasn’t intended to hurt.

            Now, I mentioned how he had favorites. There were me, my cousin Bryon (he was the favorite of the favorites, nothing he did could be wrong), and my other cousin Ricky (later on). So, of the eight grandchildren he had, three got special treatment.  Now, my cousin Lauren is only a year older than me, and growing up we lived next door to each other. Until the age of 10, on Lauren’s birthday I too got a gift, frequently it was the same thing she received. On my birthday, generally she didn’t get anything.

            I remember her sixth birthday. We were having the party at her house, and all the kids were running around in heat of the July sun in our front yard. When grandpa pulled up in his cherry red Chevy truck, with two hot pink girls bikes. I was thrilled. I’d wanted a bike for a while, and I knew one was for me. Lauren was not quite as thrilled as I was, because she to knew one was for me. Grandpa climbed out of the truck, greeted Lauren, and proceeded to pull the first bike out of the bed of the truck. He sits it down in front of her, and says “Happy Birthday.” He waits until Lauren climbs on hers, to pull mine down, which I of course being five was excitedly waiting for. For once I had not yet taken off my shoes, which is odd, normally once I was out the door they were off, and this proved to my advantage, since my parents would have stopped me from riding the bike without shoes.

            Grandpa smiled at Lauren riding her bike, before looking for me, and finding me not far, he smiles down at me, his beard wrinkling, and turns back to the truck bed. He pulls the second bike out, and sits it in front of me. I excitedly go to climb on, but he stops me. I don’t remember exactly what he said to my five-year-old self; only that it was something about riding it later. My mom joined us, and told me to thank grandpa for the bike. Which meant I enthusiastically hugged his legs saying thank you. Mom then carried my bike up to the porch where it remained until after the party, when I immediately begged for it to be taken off the porch for me to ride.

            This went on for years. At Christmas, and Easter, we received the same gifts. One year for Christmas we both received the brand new Ariel Barbie, the one with the color changing tail. I was so happy. And to me it was even cooler that Lauren too had one. It meant to my 7 year old self we could play with them together. But to Lauren it was the last straw. She was tired of getting the same gifts, and me getting gifts on her birthday. She snapped a few days after Christmas when I asked her if she wanted to play together with our new Barbies. She got super mad, and yelled at me for a good five minutes about what to this day I am not sure. At 7 I could not understand why she was so mad. At the end of her tirade, she threw the offending Barbie in the trash yelling that if I had one she didn’t want it.  She then retreated crying to her room. I was stunned staring at the brand new doll in the trash. I knew she wanted that doll just as much as I did, and so in my child like logic, I plucked it out of the trash, wiped it off, and walked into the living room, where I left it on the coffee table. I retreated across the porch, back into my own house, and quietly played with Ariel in my living room by myself.            

            It was two full years before grandpa completely stopped giving us the same thing. But after that Christmas I never received a gift on her birthday from my grandpa again. I suspects Laurens mom heard it all, and understood her daughters hurt, and sent her husband to speak with my grandfather about the matter of us both receiving gifts on her birthday. Effectively stopping the practice.  I don’t think he meant to hurt or upset Lauren. He loved all of us kids, and wouldn’t do anything to purposely upset us.

            His special treatment of me very negatively affected Lauren and I’s relationship. She hated it. Her brother was also a favorite, and this made things worse. She was always mean to me when we were kids. Looking back, I suspect that the main cause of her being so mean to me was that she envied the attention and gifts I received from grandpa. Oddly enough, I envied her for getting to see him much more than I did. All of this led to Lauren and I constantly fighting. We couldn’t be left in a room together for more than five minutes without one of us ending up crying, or both of us crying. (We fought all the time. And not always with just words, sometimes there were fists, and feet involved.)

            Another relationship that played a big part in my childhood is the one between my dad and my grandpa. In a lot of ways my dad and grandpa are alike. At the same time they are very different. They are both stubborn, and relatively quiet. They both also have very strong opinions/beliefs. (Often these clashed, which is the source of conflict I believe.) My dad and grandpa argued a lot. I never once heard the arguments. I think my mom and other relatives kept the kids distracted while arguments happened.  But it was easy to see one had taken place. After an argument we would not go to my grandparent’s for a while. The longest time we went without seeing my grandparents because of an argument was about 6 months. (If I remember right, the argument included at least one of my uncles, and that’s part of the reason we didn’t go visit. Minus the holiday gatherings, of course.)

Where I’m From

My People are from big family gatherings,

And lots of kids running around.

I’m from short women who cook down home food

And long summer days filled with out door play

Dark hair, tanned brown skin from the days our people lived in long houses in the Appalachia’s

Slow southern speech

Tainted by years in the Midwest

And sped up to be spoken quickly

I come from grandpa and his ideals

And grandpa’s word is law,

Even though he’s gone now.

Sitting in the much changed living room of my grandparent’s house, it strikes me how ingrained this room is in my memories. It still to this day seems odd that my grandfather is not sitting at the chair at the kitchen table. Through out my childhood walking into this house, he would be sitting there, turned towards the living room and the TV.             

The layout of these rooms has changed little. The couch, the overstuffed chair, the leather recliner, and the kitchen table are in the same places. However, that is all that is the same. The overstuff chair is now a brown; the original dark green upholstery is long gone. The couch is new, a brown-gray, instead of the tan couch, and the dark green ones that were here in my childhood. The kitchen table is now a pine, with black accents underneath, and black chairs, the old darker stained pine table with its pine chairs that resided in its place before my grandfather died gone with the other furniture.

            The wall color too has changed. It is now a pale green on three walls; the fourth is pale green on the bottom part. The top half is a darker green, closer to a grass green.  The walls were once white. The kitchen too has not escaped the changes the living room underwent. Most of the kitchen walls are now a light yellow. The back wall next to the fridge was first painted in a brick pattern with a medium blue as the bricks; white was used to create the space in between the bricks.  Now it is a deep scarlet red, and covered with rooster collectibles.  (My grandmother loves roosters. I think because they remind her of her childhood on a farm in Tennessee.)

            Probably the only pieces of furniture in these two rooms that have been here for as long as my memory stretches are the three tables in the living room. They are made of a medium colored wood; I suspect it’s a darker stained pine. The biggest of the three is the coffee table; the two side tables sit next to each of the two chairs. The coffee table shows signs of its age. There are nicks and scraps, from the dogs, and us kids. The glass top in the center of the coffee table has somehow survived all the wear and tear the rest of the table has received.  (The glass is surrounded on all sides by wood, its only a small 8”x8” square on the probably 3 foot long table.) The two side tables seem to have escaped the wear and tear the coffee table has received, even though they have been here just as long as the coffee table.

            It’s weird how different this room is compared to the many memories I have here. But no matter how different it looks, it is much the same room it was when I was a child. I can still picture grandpa sitting at the chair in the kitchen, grandma when she wasn’t always sick, sitting at the end of the couch, Mistzy (their west highland terrier) seated next to her. My cousins sitting spread around the room, perched on the couch, the green overstuffed chair and its stool, or the leather chair. The ceiling fan in the kitchen lights the room, our parents, my mom and dad, my aunt and uncles, sitting on whatever spot is open. The tables hold cans of pop, or cups of water or beer for the adults.

In this memory we’re happy, and our family is still all here. It’s not fractured as it is now, my parents split up, my aunt Annie, and uncle Chris divorced. My grandfather dead, along with my cousin Ricky (dead five years after my grandpa, of an accidently overdose of vicoden prescribed to him for a broken toe, and the alcohol he’d drank that night.) It seems to me everything fell apart after grandpa died. His iron fist seems to be what held us all together. And now that he’s gone, we’ve fallen apart. I know this isn’t really what’s at fault for the fracturing of this side of my family. But to the child that still resides in me that’s the explanation that fits best.

Driving up to this house today, in the car my younger brother just bought, I was amazed at how easily I can summon the exact picture of it in my mind. I can describe this house from the outside like the back of my hand. It’s sunshine yellow, a medium brown roof. The trim around the windows is brown. There are tall bushes in front of the house, covering much of the front of the house. To the right side in the front yard about 15 ft from the front door is a giant tree. When I was younger, my grandfather, uncles, and father would hang Christmas lights from the lower branches. For Halloween they would hang decorations from it.

The front yard wraps around to the right side of the house. The front door is an imposing deep brown.  The driveway comes at the side of the house. The house sits diagonally to the street, facing the corner. So even though the driveway is straight it appears not to be. The back yard is fenced off with a three-foot high chain link fence. The garage takes up a little of the backyard. There’s a garden that runs along the longest part of the fence. A flowerbed used to run along the end of that side of the fence, now half is grass; the other half is a vegetable garden.  The deck that takes up much of the yard is fairly new. It was put in in 2000 or 2001. Before that there was nothing more than a small concrete block with three stairs leading up to the back door. There’s a picnic table and grill in the backyard. Now there’s a wooden swing. My uncles put it in back in 2004, I think. It sits off to the side of the picnic table.

Grandpa loved to hold holidays outside in the backyard. The grill hasn’t been used for holiday gatherings much since grandpa died. The deck doesn’t get much of the use it was meant to. My uncles and grandpa put it in to be used at holiday gatherings, and when the grandkids came over. We don’t get together as much since grandpa died.  

Work Cited

Rice, Tom W., and Diane L. Coates. "Gender Roles in the Southern United States." Gender and Society 9 (1995): 744-56. JSTOR. Ohio University. 1 Mar. 2009 .