LOOKING BACK

A grey-haired man nodded off in a worn-leathered-maroon recliner. Suddenly, his head tilted. Then, his head drooped forward, mouth opened wide, eyeglasses slid almost to the edge of his nose. He straightened up, coughed, swallowed, sighed deeply while adjusting his eyeglasses.

A nine-year-old boy squatted on his heels next to the recliner, snickering while looking up at his grandfather.

"Well!" boomed Grandpa peering down at his grandson, smiling.

"Grandpa, what was daddy like when he was my age?"

Grandpa coughed again and pressed down on the footrest of the recliner. "What brought this about?" he asked.

"I just want to know. What did he like to do? What kind of toys did he play with? Did he have an iPhone? Did he have chores? Did he like homework?"

Grandpa scratched his head and pressed his lips tightly. "Hmm...William, you remind me of him!"

He raised himself from the recliner. "I think we should go in the kitchen and get something cold to drink. Okay, Pardner?"

A SUPERHERO!

William raced ahead of his grandfather and straddled a slat-back-kitchen chair.

Grandpa poured milk into two glasses.

"Well?" asked William, eagerly.

"He didn't have an iPhone," chuckled Grandpa. "Those gadgets weren't invented yet. Let me see...he loved watching TV shows about outer space. A favorite character of his was named Spock, who could paralyze the bad guys by pinching their shoulders. Your father joined the Boy Scouts. He liked to play with action figures--robots you could take apart and put back together. He spent hours doing that. He especially loved stories about the Old West. There was an Indian chief named, Twisted Hair--"

William forced laughter. Ha! Ha! His small-almond-shaped eyes shut tightly. "Twisted Hair! Grandpa you made that up!"

"No, no. It's true. Someday, remind me to read you a story. The Corps of Discovery," replied Grandpa. "It's a story about the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Then, there was the time..." The grey-haired man paused. "Just for fun, Grandma and your dad would get a spoon to hang from their nose. I tried--but I could never do it. They would walk around, sit at the kitchen table, eat their breakfast, and it would never fall off. The only time the spoon fell off was when they laughed."

"Boy! That's cool! Can Grandma show me?" asked William.

"Sure!" replied Grandpa. "You would make her day! I'm good...at...at checkers! We can play a game later."

"I love playing checkers! Dad taught me!"

"Is that a fact!" said Grandpa.

"Grandpa, tell me more about Dad."

"Your dad liked to take things apart. If it wasn't his action figures, it was something else. Once, he removed a doorknob off his bedroom door. I asked him why? He said he wanted to find out how it worked! He always asked why when he he wasn't satisfied with an answer.. Sometimes, I would answer because. He would come back with because why? He practiced and practiced how to whistle. Our newspaper boy would whistle through his teeth and over his bottom lip, then throw the newspaper. Your father thought that was neat. Another thing he liked to do was pitch baseball cards. He practiced for hours. Some boys at school lost a lot of great baseball cards."

"Why?" asked William.

"Well, pitching baseball cards--it's like learning to ride a bicycle--it takes practice. There were two different games.

The first game, the card pitched closest to the wall was the winner. Or, the second game, your card thrown down had to lay face up. Two boys pitch at the same time. The card laying face up is the winner, and the card that lays face down loses. Your dad liked the face up game. The wall game dented a lot of baseball cards." Grandpa sipped his milk and poured milk from the quart container, refilling his glass. "Want some more?" he asked.

"Okay," said William holding up his half-full glass.

Grandpa continued. "He had good grades, studied in his room for hours. Grandma brought up snacks. I think she took advantage of the moment to hug and kiss him. His opened books were piled on his desk, papers scattered all over.

At night, he would take off his white crew socks, with colored stripes at the top, and throw them on the floor. His clothes lay in a heap on a his chair." Grandpa stared into space, smiled and sighed. "His socks took the shape of donuts. When I showed them to Grandma, she kissed them."

"Does Grandma do that with my socks?" asked William.

"She still does, with your socks and your sister's," answered Grandpa.

"And then what, Grandpa?" asked William.

"Let me see...then what?" Grandpa pushed away his chair with caster wheels.

William giggled at the sight of his grandfather rolling to the refrigerator.

Grandpa left his chair, reached on top of the refrigerator and grabbed a bag of cookies. He rolled back to the kitchen table, opened the bag, took a cookie and passed the bag to his grandson.