Tom Sparks moved his family here and there in Oklahoma and Arkansas in the early twentieth century. Next to him is the author’s uncle Otto and just visible behind them is his dad Billy. Jack and Jake were the patient mules.
Grandkids are little equalizers. If you believe that your mission is to guide and instruct, you’re not wrong — but the newly minted grandparent will discover rapidly that the guidance and instruction runs both ways. Often when you least expect it.
You might, for example, decide to explain to your preschooler how a garden works. You’re thinking they’ll get a good grounding in how flowers grow from seeds, and why plants rely on water and sunlight. All this will additionally provide plenty of entries to other topics, like rocks and bugs. But don’t underestimate the ability of a child’s mind to skitter off in unexpected directions. “Hey grandpa, can we eat this mushroom?”
And don’t get ahead of yourself, or ahead of the school curriculum. I endeavored to tell a first grader working on Common Core math that she should carry the one in order to solve some kind of calculation. “We don’t carry the one,” she patiently advised me. I still don’t know how to do addition 21st-century-style, and if they ever did offer Common Core for Geezers, I’d probably fall asleep just as I did back when I first tried to learn to carry the one.
I do recall that I experienced a few things from my paternal grandfather. Tom Sparks was impossibly old when I came into the world (well, he was my age now) and I found him to be wonderful, if a bit mysterious. He was tall, slender, and dignified (I did not get those genes, however). He was soft-spoken but had a dry wit that kept the chuckles coming, and which I appreciated even in my childhood.
In his life he was a farmer, a grain elevator operator, a handyman, and who knows what else. He showed me the four rows of corn he had growing in the backyard and I learned a bit about kernels and silks and husks. Tom could make pretty near any tool or piece of furniture he wanted. I have a six-foot pitchfork he made from a long piece of pipe and a four-pronged iron tool that he connected using a nail that he jammed in and twisted tight. It’s probably a hundred years old, is rusty and homely, and still works, not that I have a lot of hay to redistribute. He also made a wee rocking chair that I used, and that my kids used, and now my grandkids use. I also have his strop and straight razor, but I am too modern to even think about using that thing.
I once wandered too close to a trellis in his front yard and got stung by a wasp. I don’t remember that it hurt much but I did like how everyone fussed over me. The best part, though, was when he quietly got up, assembled some kind of torch, and smoked those bugs into the next county, stingers and all. So, when he later asked me to run an errand, I was glad to do it, even if it was to go to the little grocery a block away and fetch him some Beech-Nut Chewing Tobacco.
He was fascinating to me, but I can’t say I learned any great skills from him. I can hardly grow a plant, much less a row of corn. I couldn’t possibly hammer together a pitchfork or make a piece of furniture unless it comes from Ikea. I get rid of stinging pests by getting a can of wasp killer with a very long spray nozzle (and once I’ve deployed the fatal squirt, I run very quickly into the house). And I never did learn to chew terbacky.
On the other hand, I have driven thousands of miles without causing an accident. The story was told about the one time that Tom tried to operate a car: It was parked in a barn, he cranked it up, managed to get it in gear, and immediately backed it through the rear of the barn. It is said that he removed himself from the vehicle, picked off the splinters from the damage, and never got behind a wheel the rest of his life.
Maybe there is something to be learned from that. Thanks, grandpa!