When we were kids, we would go to my grandparents’ house about every month for a birthday celebration or a holiday or whatever. This included cousins and all that. We’d play whatever sport was in season in the big yard beside the house. Baseball was not my thing, but I could handle backyard football ok. Football has a way of leveling out factors like size versus speed.
One grey cold day in 1987, we were playing another game of football when one of my cousins opened up a fairly big run. Being a part of the chase group, I did not quite reach him until he had been stopped by someone faster than I. In the process of trying to stop, I was aided by my cousin’s head. None of us wore helmets or pads of any kind, but I was wearing braces. Years later I would be told that the braces were probably the only thing that kept my tooth in my head.
I heard this as the tooth was being removed from my head. It had gotten rotten and needed to go. It had been dead for some time. In fact, shortly after I made a tackle with my left incisor (something I had “walked off” at the advice of another cousin) my gum and lip swelled with infection. It was an embarrassing thing for a 14 year old. I don’t recall my parents ever even mentioning it. That seems strange.
My dad was in town over the weekend. He came to take his grand-daughters on an adventure. He’s sweet like that. I had been previously committed to some other activities, so I did not get to spend as much time with him and my step-mother as I would have liked. Cue the Harry Chapin. We did manage to have dinner a couple of times, which was nice. My father, apparently, noticed how much I had come to resemble my maternal grandfather.
I never met my mother’s father, but he was someone important to my dad. He and my uncle (my mother’s brother) were and are pretty close, and my dad obviously enjoyed knowing my grandfather. I never met my grandfather because he died of a heart attack in 1952, around the time my dad and my uncle were 15 or so. According to my father, who I talked to on the phone today, my grandfather had put on quite a bit of weight in his final years.
My dad was concerned that he saw the same progression happening in me. I’ve socked on a few pounds for sure, as some less than flattering photos on Facebook can attest. I was very touched and somewhat amazed that my father would give voice to his concern about my weight. I was grateful to know that he was paying attention. I had a salad for lunch. And went running after work.
he used to point out women to me and tell me what was defective about their bodies and advise me not to turn out like that.
so, not quite so sweet, but same result with the running and whatnot.