Everyone Needs a Grampy in Their Life

When I was told I needed to interview someone for a project in English, I automatically thought to ask my Grandfather, who I call Grampy. Although Grampy has many names, including Grumpy (depending on the day), Gramps, Chip, “Dantheman” to his online poker friends, and his real name, Daniel Marquis. The day before my interview with my grampy, I told him what the topic was at the dinner table. Technically, that was also the moment I asked him if he wanted to be interviewed. But I knew even if I waited 10 minutes before the interview to ask him if it was okay with it, he would say “yes”.  I told him that he would be asked about his family growing up and how it was living with so many siblings, and encouraged him to think about what he would say. He started discussing it then, but I told him we should wait for tomorrow. My Dad then chimed in to ask how many siblings he actually had, and to that, my Grampy paused and thought about it. After a minute of debating how many he had, he came to the conclusion he had five other siblings. Then we all proceeded to eat eggplant parmesan and talk about our days.

The next day, around 2 o’clock, I told him that I was going to interview him in a little while. I then take a longer glance at him to see he is in his “Quickie”. That is the name of his electric wheelchair, which is a slightly worse name than his last electric one, called “Jazzy”… I immediately know he is going outside, because of the Quickie, which is used to get around rough terrain like grass and dirt. Thirty minutes later I go to navigate where he is. I can’t see him, but I follow the trail of a quite familiar smell. I find him a minute later sitting in his Quickie with a cigar in his hand. 

We didn’t talk about his siblings at first, though we got on that topic at some point. Instead, we talked about his good old days shooting for the NRA, National Rifle Association. He started in the late 70s, which is a little after he had his two daughters, Amie and Brandy. He went to just spectate over his friends shooting that day, and from that day forward, he started a hobby. He said he was “mediocre” at first, though he grasped the idea quickly. He explained to me the different ranks, and how he was always on the “Gold Team” unlike his friend Bob, on the blue team… The gold team meant he was in the top five. He found a passion, hobby, and something more than that. He made friendships, and lifelong bonds, and he won a lot of trophies to which he shows pictures to me frequently. He quickly made his way to the top, becoming vice president for the Poland Gun Club, right behind the president, Carroll, who is someone he still keeps in touch with. Although he hates to admit sometimes how he feels about him, he opened up to me and said Carroll is “always there when you need him–dependable”. My Grampy did a lot for the NRA. They used to have their meets right below a town hall, where people met and where kids were often. So Grampy, and some of his buddies from shooting, built a gun range for them, where it would be safe to use guns. He said that it was heated, and nice inside, but that they didn’t have a toilet, and instead they used a portapotty, as he explained to me. He went on for a couple minutes on how the portapotty worked and how it was occasionally cleaned, every year or so.

One memorable thing about my Grampy is that he never fails to bring the topic of poop into a conversation. And this interview was no exception. For Christmas a few years ago, he received a pin that says “I Pooped Today”, which he wore out proudly in public from December 26th and on, until it broke one day. But that never stops him from telling people about that pin.  And following that, he got a book of interesting non-conventional toilets around the world. 

Grampy maybe doesn’t have an incredible filter, but he is a funny guy because of that, even when some topics aren’t that comical. We got on the topic of his early life, before devoting a lot of it to the NRA. Growing up, he lived in a two-bedroom apartment, with at the time, 6 other people in his house (his youngest brother was not born yet). All the girls shared a bedroom, and all the boys shared a bedroom, and they were like that for years. The children only got one bath a week, since there was no shower, and they were struggling with money. My Grampy and four other siblings shared bath water for that Saturday bath. “When we played on the weekdays, we would just get hosed off”, my Grampy stated. I laughed and then realized he was being serious, though then we laughed harmoniously afterward.

He worked for a restaurant on the Tacoma lake when he was a teenager, starting at 13. He liked it, he said, as he would wash dishes, but also got to take the owner’s boat out and drive his car around. He met some good friends from there and stayed friends for a while. As I listen to my Grampy tell stories, of near-death experiences from fooling around on boats and bridges, his eyes look off into the sky as if he is reliving 60 years ago. His light blue eyes seem to twinkle because of the sun glaring into them, and he takes a long puff from his cigar, only to realize that no smoke is coming out. “When you don’t puff it for a bit, it goes out”, and relights it again. There is a moment of silence while he is relighting it, and I realize that I have only asked a total of maybe 4 questions, and it has been almost an hour. He can talk for ages, and it is interesting every minute of it. Sometimes he will mix me up as Brandy or Amie, or forget how many siblings he has, but his stories always seem to be insightful. I admire him for that because even with his mix-ups, he has a great memory, which I hope passes down to me.

Grampy had to stop shooting because he developed Multiple Sclerosis, better known as MS. When he told me that was the reason he stopped, he paused for another moment. His favorite thing to do in life, that he was good at, was gone. Though M.S. didn’t stop him from other things. He still drove his car until he crashed into a little Hyundai Accent, that he rolled over with his Jeep…During his driving test. He then looked over to the instructor and said “Guess I am not getting my license”. And he still did upholstery for a while after his diagnosis, which was his job for a long time. He was wheelchair-bound after a few years and moved in with a couple of his family members. He stayed with his sister who he was closest to growing up, Donna, in the winter, and in the summer, stayed with either us or Grampy’s other daughter, Amie. However, when Aunt Donna moved back to Maine, Grampy came to live with us permanently.

Although he and I get on each other’s nerves sometimes, me being a 17-year-old and him being a 74-year-old, we are close. I would refer to my Grampy as my best friend when I was younger, and although I don’t say it really now, it is still true. Everyone needs a grampy in their life; A witty, poop joke-making, handy, wise old man. Although his exciting, interesting life came to a halt as he got older, and I would wish nothing more for him to magically get more mobile again,  I can’t help but say I am a little glad he had to come to stay with us, because if not, I would not have been as close as I am with him. He has taught me how to install blinds for my windows, shown me how to cook a good egg, taught me how to shoot a gun myself (even if it was a pink BB gun and not a rifle), taught me real music like his favorite artists like Aretha Franklin or Neal Dimond, and told me when to stay quiet when I am fighting with my parents. And without him, I wouldn’t be who I am today. 

“Star Valley – My Grandfather’s Farm (1941)” by roger4336 is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.