Grandpa Ike

My dad makes a wonderful grandpa: he’s silly, always has a bag of M&Ms handy, built his own garage and filled it with an assortment of toys, trucks and tools, and he’s a great tickler to boot. Best of all—he loves being a grandpa. In fact, in his personal history he wrote that he pictured himself being a grandpa before picturing himself as a dad (however that works out). He has always called himself an old man. And, he had a special relationship with his own grandpa that shines through in his interactions with the grandkids.

However, tonight Atrain spotted a few gaps in Grandpa Ike’s super powers. It was Bambi’s birthday, so we went to Spork for an overnight visit. I asked my dad to help me drag an extra mattress into the guest bedroom so Atrain could sleep near me. But, Grandpa doesn’t know how to ‘help’—instead he flung the entire queen sized mattress over his back and packed it up the stairs *by himself* like a sack of grain. I protested the entire way, “Dad, what are you doing? Dad, stop that, you’re going to hurt yourself—please, let me help, I’m not that big of a wimp,” then, giving up, fired these words in his direction, “Arg. You silly old man.”

My dad didn’t hear the last phrase I uttered. (He was too busy compressing the disks in his backbone as he hurled a bed over the banister for me). But he would have laughed, the same way he laughed when Atrain repeated my phrase when we reached the top of the stairs. I repeated, “Dad, you really should have let me help you with that,” and Atrain chimed in, “Yeah, you silly old man.” I’m still laughing at that one.

Also, Atrain brought his little taxi car along because it has a squeaky wheel, and of course, Grandpa Ike was bound to have something to fix it. After we got unpacked Atrain drove his little toy car over to Grandpa for a mechanical consultation. Grandpa Ike pushed it back and forth, but found no problem with Atrain’s machine. Atrain was thoroughly confused, and continued to roll the car to and fro saying, “The squeaky tire, that one. That! Do you hear that?” But my dad just returned Atrain’s confused expression with one of his own.

And that was when we all realized—almost simultaneously—that Atrain was hearing an annoying high-pitched noise that was out of Grandpa Ike’s hearing spectrum. He turned his head and tried to hear it with his “good ear.” Nothing. My dad looked up at me and I looked at him. “It’s time, dad,” I said with a smile. “Can I please take you the audiologist? Your deaf grandson can hear things that you cannot.” But Grandpa Ike just laughed it off. What a silly old man.