Daddy Issues

My father's father, David Hopkins Carpenter, "Big Dave" to most, "Grandpa Dave" to me, passed on when I was eleven.  He had either Alzheimer's or advanced elderly dementia; six of one...half dozen of another.  By the time I could have known much about him, he wasn't there, even though he was. 

I remember mostly that he would take me on walks around his neighborhood when I was a very little boy and would visit.  My cousins, all older, recall that he called all of them "Big Boy" or "Daughter" and never by their names; they weren't sure if he knew their names (even though two were named after him).  I know him mostly through the bits and pieces I got from my father.  Pop described Big Dave as having the soul of a poet.  That must have been difficult, considering that he owned an industrial supply company.

Big Dave's father died when he was very, very young and he and his siblings were farmed out as "poor relations".  He went through the Great Depression and then went to war, serving in the Navy in World War II.  Pop said the soul of a poet; I suspect it was of a philosopher. 

One of my father's enduring memories of my grandfather, who was a distant and enigmatic man to his children (thus making him all the more beloved), was Pop's daily duty as a boy to bring Big Dave a glass of beer after he'd come home from work for the day and sit out in the back yard, listening to the birds sing as the late afternoon lengthened.  Big Dave would take the glass and off-handedly recite Robert Service to his younger, adoring son:

When the long, long day is over, and the Big Boss gives me my pay,

I hope that it won't be hell-fire, as some of the parsons say.

And I hope that it won't be heaven, with some of the parsons I've met --

All I want is just quiet, just to rest and forget.

That's the opening salvo to "Song of the Wage Slave." I had that calligraphied all pretty-like and framed for Pop. Two of them.  One for his house; one for his mountain place, so that now he's an old man, he can drink a beer and reflect.  Someday, one will no doubt pass to my older brother.  One will pass to me.  That's the family legacy.

My father went on to get two PhDs in English.  I can't help but suspect why.

I did not major in English.  I am not a poet.  I'm not a philosopher.

I may not have known Big Dave, but as I age, I think understand him more.