How I met my Grandfather

I thought this would be about my father and although it is. It’s also is about my grandfather someone I’ve discovered I have more in common with than I thought. Writing will do that. My father always came with a question. I knew the man who raised me. The question was who he was before I was born. Who he’d been before he’d met my mother.

Before I was born my father was a drifter. He stopped in a café in 1955. Even though I wasn’t there I know the conversation. “Miss, what kind of pie do you have?” My mother would mention apple, peach, and cherry, but none would interest him. She’d smile and add banana to the list. Banana pie was his weakness and pretty waitresses his other. He spent the winter in that western panhandle town. There wasn’t any real reason to stay except for the sagebrush, the cold north wind and of course banana pie. It’s funny they always seemed to have banana. He ended up working in an upholstery shop and dating my mother during the winter of that year. But when the weather turned warm again he left, promising to return. You see, drifters don’t stay in one place very long.

Where he went was a mystery. Maybe, it wasn’t to my mother. But to my grandfather it was. It was a mystery that needed to be solved and he’d find out just who this guy really was. As the Justice of the Peace he knew people. He had friends who worked for the state police. They’d find nothing, which irritated grandfather more than anyone knew. Little did he know two ex-wives and someone else pursued father.

As the leaves turned red and gold and the air became frosty my father returned. He ordered pie and went back to work repairing furniture. Grandfather had spent the summer trying to get a lead on this guy. That helped grandfather make his decision. He’d have to get rid of him. No drifter would date his daughter. But grandfather was too late. My mother and father ran off to see another Justice of the Peace. This JP was in New Mexico, far away from Grandfather’s control. When they returned Grandfather had a new son-in-law.

The new son-in law never went by his real name he was simply Buck a name given to him by his older brothers when he was the youngest and the toughest of the bunch. But grandfather needed more. He asked to see the marriage license. He knew he had him. He knew father’s given name would appear on that certificate. But when grandfather looked the line only had two initials on it.

So, as the weather warmed and spring came, mother and father left. Grandfather would be left with more questions than ever. The letters would come from all over the Midwest. Nebraska one week Texas the next. He’d keep searching for answers. He’d never really find out the truth. You see, drifters don’t stay in one place very long.