My Grandfathers Clock and My Teachers Plant

You may know this old children’s song, it was a favorite of mine and I loved to sing it. Here’s a short version:

My grandfather's clock

 Was too large for the shelf,

 So it stood ninety years on the floor;

 It was taller by half

 Than the old man himself,

 Though it weighed not a pennyweight more.

 It was bought on the morn

 Of the day that he was born,

 It was always his treasure and pride;

 But it stopped short

 Never to go again,

 When the old man died.

 Ninety years without slumbering,

 Tick, tock, tick, tock,

 His life seconds numbering,

 Tick, tock, tick, tock,

 It stopped short

 Never to go again,

 When the old man died.

 This is not exactly the same story, but it’s not a folk legend, it’s real.

My daughter entered kindergarten in Ontario when we moved here, half way through the year, in December, 2000. She spent the first half of the year in Calgary schools, and entered school in Ancaster when we moved. She had the choice of two teachers, and based on a chance recommendation, we chose one of the classes. She had a wonderful classroom experience, and at the end of the school year her teacher gave several children hibiscus plants as a thank you for all the work their parents had done during the year as classroom helpers.

At the end of the summer, her teacher died of cancer, which we had not known about, and we were all shocked. The children sang at her funeral service although were away at the time and didn’t know about it until we returned. This was hard for all of us of course, ands difficult to try and explain to a group of six year old children.

We kept the plant and it bloomed beautifully. Not everyone was concerned about their plants of course, but we felt like part of that teacher was contained in that plant, and it was our last memory of her. As it increased in size we put it into larger and larger pots. Each winter we dragged it to my building so it could winter over in a cool and dark place, and we would bring it home each spring to live in our home and outdoors in our yard.

Over the years we were committed to that plant. And as each continuing year went by,  the plant began to wither, and gradually it was on its last legs.

On June 28, the last leaf went and the plant was dead, the same day as my daughter graduated from high school………

Skank Facination

When people watching I often I assume those of us looking all agree on our general analysis. Not with all people, but at least when I think something, my wife usually thinks the same way, maybe.

We’re sitting at the football game Saturday evening when a group of people sit down in front of us. Its two couples and the women seem similar. They could be sisters, a mother and child (doubtful) or two friends who want to look alike as they’ve both dressed the same way. Both are very thin, have red hair pulled back tightly, and wear very tight fitting matching clothes, on almost childlike bodies. They both have similar male escorts, of similar ages, and neither is obviously married. They follow the traditional skank look.

	The Urban Dictionary describes Skank as:
	Derogatory term for a (usually younger) female, implying trashiness or tackiness, lower-class status, poor hygiene, flakiness, and a scrawny, pockmarked sort of ugliness. May also imply promiscuity, but not necessarily. Can apply to any race, but most commonly used to describe white trash.

I am in an observational mood, and as we are close together, and am keeping tabs.

The cuter girl is in front of me so I watch. Her date is all over her for a bit, sitting on her left and constantly rubbing her right side with his hand, and only when we stand for a touchdown, and he gets happy, does he actually grab her ass. And this was the high point as I thought more would follow. It didn’t!

She keeps drinking beer and is getting a bit sloshed, and is slurring her words. There is much less action with the other couple, although she gets a bit side rubbed as well. I do not understand the action but I’m not a part of their adventure, just a spectator. My role is defined as a reporter, with little to report. Like most of the football patrons I observe, their main goal is to stand up, go away, buy beer, return and once in a while and maybe watch the game.

As I am watching this action, my wife is watching. She probably does not have a skank fascination, which keeps me glued to these people so I have no idea what she will say, in fact I assumed she never even noticed them.

After they all go off to a mysterious place (probably outside the venue to smoke) my wife says, “Didn’t you have a hard time looking at that girl?” I have no idea what she means and not wanting to walk into a trap I say, “What girl?”

She explains it’s the cuter one (my terms) and thinks she’s the daughter of the other and my wife is repulsed by her skin tone, make up, false eye lashes and general look and demeanor. It is making her ill, it makes her skin crawl. I admitted to noticing the young woman, and decided not to mention my fascination with her nor the overzealousness of her boyfriend. My best plan was not to notice. I think they may be porn starts in another place and time, and decide to search online for the films.

I do have a skank fascination, probably because I never really knew anyone who fit that genre.

They eventually all came back, and I looked for many of the things that seemed to offend my wife, but never really found them. She seemed kind of sexy and easy, at least for a guy who wasn’t supposed to be really looking.

I now have lived longer than my father.

I now have lived longer than my father.

While this is no great feat by itself, for years I thought it was just my secret thought, I wanted to live longer, not outlive, my father. It was just a nonsensical goal, as my father died in 1970, but the goal was to make it at least as far into this journey as he did. Now that I’ve achieved his goal my next one is to live longer than my mother, another 17 years.

I never planned to reveal this thought, as I thought it quite unnatural, until I grew older. It was my mother who told me when she had outlived her mother (82) that it was a goal. It was my aunt who had mentioned to me that she had outlived her mother, my mother and now her father who convinced me that it was quite a natural thought, at least in my family.

So I counted days. My father had died on July 1, 1970 and his birthday was January 7, 1899. I had to figure the extra days before I was sure it was correct. I had to remember that we count from the end of the first year as opposed to the beginning (the Chinese do that one where you’re born at one).

The goal was reached, and now we move on. It’s an odd and strange goal, and I’m glad at least some others think the same way.

Driving...Driving...Driving...

My daughter often has a bad relationship with vehicles. Ever since I first gave her a driving lesson and she asked me where the key goes, I knew we were in trouble. We have always said she had a car magnet, as she would walk into oncoming cars so naturally that you would have thought they were aiming at her. She does this to this day as we saw an example of this a few nights ago and even her sister commented on her “ inner car magnetism”.

I have written about her first accident on the fourth day of her learners permit, with her mother in the car, and she ended up causing very little damage but getting a ticket because of an unscrupulous guy who said he was fine and called the police an hour after he went home and decided, with help from his wife, to cause trouble, assuming he had some case, which he didn’t.

Her next accident was with a pole in the snow and we were able to extricate her and the car from the scene and had to pay for car restoration ourselves. 

Her next accident, which I have written about earlier, was smashing one of our cars into the other one in our driveway while leaving the garage.

To sum up, lawyer fees in the first, and repair fees in the other two.

You would think we would learn. She is depressed about all this herself and is sure she will never succeed as a driver, which could be true, but we are determined to make her normal.

Last night she took the car to work, as my wife and her mother had just returned from New York after a week-long visit. My daughter drove to work, and when it was over, tried to come home. The car wouldn’t start, and after a late night festival of Mom and Dad, we got the car started and got it home. Today we replaced the battery.

My daughter had nothing to do with it at all, she just happened to take the car and the battery died (it was seven years old!). It just needed to die on her watch!

MEDS

Years ago my first wife and I used to make fun of (behind their backs of course) her grandmother and her husband, because of the amount of medications with which they used to travel. We thought, as did most of the family, that this was ridiculous.

Now, I am as old today as they may have been then, I look at my own situation. While my mother-in-law takes great pride in the fact that she only takes one pill, she refuses to count the endless supply of vitamins sold to her by some silver tonged devil at a health food store because they don’t count to her as medicine.

I don’t really care about her, I am focusing on me. I have way too many necessary medications which keep me alive, I guess.

So, in keeping with that thought, I went to the dollar store and purchased a plastic box for my meds to separate them from my socks, I guess, and photographed that box so you could see the outrage!

Here are my friends. I complained to the pharmacist that I was getting to be just like all the old grandparents (I do have 7 grandchildren anyway so it is true) and have my box of meds, and she laughed and told me I hardly had any compared with their clientele.

I guess this makes me feel better.