Dinner with Grandpa January, 2011
Gary Hyde
When my brother Bob and I were both just a couple of young
kids, less than ten years old, we would occasionally go to visit with our grandma
and grandpa Hyde for Sunday dinner. Mom
would load us in the car and drive the 1 ½ miles from our house at 79 R St. in
Salt Lake City, downtown to their little apartment at 320 East 1st South. We entered into the red brick apartment
building through two large glass front doors which took us into a small lobby
with a bank of mailboxes mounted on the entire right hand side of the wall. Bob used to tell me that there were tiny little
men in there that would hand the mail out to you when you opened the mailbox door. After passing through the lobby there were
several stairs which lead us down to the lower level where grandma and grandpa
lived. The long hallway was dimly lit
and had the smell of stale cigarette and cigar smoke. Grandpa was a pipe
smoker, so I guess he contributed his share of smoke to the place, although the
pipe smoke is a sweeter smell and much more pleasing than the old stale cigarette
smoke.
We walked down the hallway to the third door on the right,
knocked, and as soon as the door opened we would be swept into the open arms of
our grandma Ruby and grandpa Frank, not to be released until an ample supply of
warm hugs and kiss were bestowed upon us.
After our greetings and hellos, mom would start helping grandma set the
table and then they would both disappear into the kitchen to start preparing
the meal. Grandpa would sit back in his
well worn, overstuffed, brown leather chair and start fiddling with his pipe. The chair had big round arms on it; the kind
that would invite two young boys to climb up onto it and snuggle back into
grandpa’s lap. This was our favorite
time of the visit, and it was here, in that overstuffed leather chair, that I formed
the very best memories that I have of my grandfather. Grandpa would settle back, wrap his arms
around both of us and look at us through half closed eyes and ask us if we had ever
heard the story about …….....; then he
would then start to spin us a tale. Grandpa
was a master story teller. He told the
kind of stories that would immediately grab our attention and then keep us motionless,
glued to the arms of that wonderful big overstuffed chair, wrapped up in grandpa’s
great big loving arms, with our eyes and attention sharply focused on his every
word.
The first thing that had to happen, before any serious kind
of story telling could begin, was to light up his pipe. I guess it made him think better; and when he
told a story he would blow those perfectly round smoke rings that would float
upwards towards the ceiling, drawing our eyes and attentions right up with them.
Just as those smoke rings would draw us
in, so would his stories. He would
describe in detail how everything looked, felt and tasted, tricking our imaginations
into believing that these stories were about us, and that we were right there
in the story.
He would often talk about the place where he worked; down in
the boiler rooms of the old Judge Building in Salt Lake City. Grandpa was a self employed mechanic and had
worked maintenance on the boilers in that building for years. Some of his favorite stories he had to tell were
about that boiler room and his faithful dog Boots. Boots was about the most intelligent dog ever
known to man. He would fetch grandpa’s
slippers, the newspapers, he would feed himself, pick up after himself, and
even light grandpa’s pipe for him. We
could listen to those stories that grandpa would tell of his dog Boots for
hours.
Boots would go to work with grandpa down in the boiler room every
day; they were inseparable. Grandpa told
us that he had even taught Boots how to take over the boilers for him in case
he ever got sick. One of grandpa’s
friends was a metal worker and had made grandpa a small metal casting of Boots,
which to this day I still proudly display as a doorstop for my office door.
Grandpa would tell us a few mild stories about his work, his
dog Boots, or any other subject that would pop into his mind, and then he would
settle back and get down to the serious business of telling the real stories;
the scary kind of ghost stories that make you wish you could run away, but had
you so engrossed that you could barely breath.
The kind of tales where witches would eat little children and ugly,
warty trolls would hide under their beds. As he talked, his voice would get low
and very intense. His eyes would narrow
and before we knew it we were sucked right into the story as an active
participant. As the suspense of the
story increased, so would the size of our eyes.
As the witch started to cackle, as the wolf would let loose his blood
curdling howl , or as the bear started to raise up on his hind legs and let out
his deafening roar, our mouths would hang open and our fingers would dig deep
into grandpa‘s arms out of sheer terror.
Just as the punch line was about to be delivered, grandpa
would talk ever so softly, lean his head slightly forward, and then he would let
out a blood curdling scream, “Arrrgh”; he would pop his false teeth out and
grab the both of us in his big arms and draw us in close to him; then we would
all laugh and scream with delight.
Those wonderful stories came to an end when my grandpa Hyde
died at 76 years of age; I was just 17 years old. I still remember the funeral; the family was
all seated together in the front row of the chapel with the casket right in
front of us. I can still see the sorrow
on my dad’s face as they wheeled the casket out from the room. In one last bid of farewell and affection he
lurched forward from his chair with tears in his eyes to hold on to the casket,
longing for just one last time to be wrapped in those great big loving arms of
my grandpa Hyde.
