Grandpa Wrestling

Tonight was my Grandpa's 98th birthday, which was pretty cool. I learned that he used to herd cattle (which neither of his daughters knew), that he met Howard Hughes (whom he says was , surprise surprise, crazy) when he turned down a lucrative job to work for him and that his grandmother came over on the second wagon train to ever go to Oregon (and the first with women). In addition to these facts, he also told me emphatically that religion is stupid because there is no proof for it. I've never heard him come down on religion or politics before, but the man was a Sunday school teacher and a deacon as well as an engineer/lumberjack/cattle-hearder/naval officer.

I got to tape some of his stories. He is deaf so rather than converse, all he really does is tell stories from his past. When they're not sprinkled with engineer-speak that he assumes I know, they're really fascinating. Above is my favorite.

As I'm moving around all of this stuff that was my dad's I'm thinking about the mutability of history. It's only in and around this last century, during the time that my grandpa was alive, that we've been able to record music - before you had to listen to the musician live or nothing at all. There is no record of the sound itself from before, only instruments and documentation (at this point in the post I should warn that I've been smoking, so if I'm not already blowing your mind you might want to bail). Similarly, all the things that my dad left me are really part of my memories of him; I think about all of my things now in terms of what I want to pass on to my children (when they exist).

I spent a long time tonight letting my grandpa go through an old family album and tell me who the people are. If he doesn't do it then no one else will! My mom doesn't know who the people are any more than I do and my grandma can't see them.
The best story that came out of it:

There's a picture of my grandpa at about ten-years-old dressed in a policeman's uniform. Grandpa told me a story about visiting a sick family friend who was, at the time, also being visited by "a big Scotch-Irishman." "Oh great, just what I need, a cop," joked the sick man. "Help me officer, this man is accosting me!" At this point grandpa revealed to me that his fake uniform came with a real billy club (his college also had a shooting range under the gym, just to give an indication of how times change). He started beating on the other guy with his club. "I pert near took his head off!" laughed my grandpa.

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Elsewhere in the dinner I argued with my aunt and uncle about how good The Wrestler was. "The guy was such a loser!" my uncle kept arguing, as if that meant something. "What a meathead!" We came to common ground when he invited me to come with him to WWE Wrestlemania the week before I leave. Whhaaat? My whole family was shocked at how much I knew about WWE, except for my cousin who used to play WWF: No Mercy on N64 with me. I guess that was a phase in middle school the rest of them missed. This is understandable because I only watched Smackdown because my friends did and I didn't have cable. I'm still not sure how seriously my uncle takes it. Maybe he expected The Wrestler to follow a storyline similar to those that happen during WWE matches. Like, maybe he thought Micky Rourke would get surprised at Raw Is War and challange Mankind to a Pay-Per-View ladder-match. Probably that or the plot of Rocky.

In other entertainment news, I also saw The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford and it was awesome. That and Gone, Baby, Gone have me excited about Casey Affleck's future career, cuz he really knocks those out of the park. At least, as excited as you can get over the career of an actor I don't know or an Affleck.
Plus, Skins is back with a whole new cast! I'm gonna watch it right now and see if the magic is still there! And by magic, I mean drugs. (Update: just watched it. OH. NO.)

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