Author: Ronald Guenther
Written: April 15, 2014

Mom and pop settled in, they had the place on Date Street that was just about right for them, I had the little playmate across the street, Norma Ann Oar, Mingus Park was close, grandpa stopped by ever day or we would go out to his place, pop’s job was doing fine, the little family was happy, but in the spring of 1939, grandpa began to fail. To all appearances to me, he was still the invincible one that I always knew. But he was having headaches, double vision, memory slips, once the folks met him driving home and he was driving right into them on the wrong side of the road. He himself was afraid that he was losing his mind and hoped that maybe there were secondary problems that were causing all of this and so he went to the doctor complaining about stomach problems and so on. The doctor took out his gall baldder, a nice healthy gall bladder, but it did not help, nothing helped. Still, he kept going, he was working more than ever, the job at the airport was getting going, he was involved in a lot, but mom could see that all was not quite right. Bob was born and he was delighted. Now, he said, the folks should look for another place, a bigger place, something like his friend, Mr. Selvors had out in Glasgow. That would be just about right, and mom did start to keep her eye out for such a place.

My own memories of grandpa start just after that Christmas of 1939. The grandparents always had a big Christmas tree. The children never were allowed to decorate it, they decorated it late Christmas Eve after all had gone to bed, and when the children woke up, they came down to see the Christmas tree a lit up. It must have been stunning. I remember going out to the farm about every evening, the hired men and grandpa and often pop would be loading the milk cans up to take to the creamery and they would roll the milk cans over to the truck and I had a little barrel, a beer keg, actually, and I would roll my barrel. I loved that and grandpa liked to watch it and then one morning, he ran over my barrel. He always said he would get me another barrel, but he died before that happened. At the meetings of the creamery, he would take me there, and I would be dressed just like him. He would sit me on the window sill and say that I should not talk or move about and so I sat there through the meetings watching everyone, never moving, never crying and then after the meetings we would go out to fetch the milk cans and watch them come out after being power washed, I loved seeing those cans come out, what an adventure. During haying season, mom and grandma would take Bob and me out at lunch time to bring him lunch, I remember seeing him at his place on Haynes Inlet and he would be sweaty and bits of grass and seeds would be clinging to him. This was 1940 in the winter, spring and summer. I remember going out to the airport where he was bulldozing the runway, there was only to be one runway, a little bigger than the Marshfield Airport, but not much. It would take bigger planes, the runway was to be larger, and I would sit on the seat of the tractor, I was in heaven. Often on a Saturday we would go up Allegheny or Millicoma and have a picnic. He would show me the crawdads, always smoking his pipe. Sometimes in the late morning, I would sit on his lap while he took a break and he would let me sip on his coffee. I still remember that taste, it was sweetened with a bit of sugar and real, unpasteurized cream, it tasted wonderful.

Pop always dreamed of maybe moving to California. Even in later life, up to the time he died, he talked about moving to California. I think that brought back memories of a happy trip that their whole family had taken while his mother was alive. So, during his vacation that spring in 1940, we drove to California. The trip was supposed to last 14 days. Mom had written ahead and gotten brochures from all the places they wanted to see and they headed out with Bob and me. I remember very little of that trip, a stop at the mission in Santa Barbara which had been founded by Father Juniper Serra, a night in a motel on the main railway line and to this day I think of an train engine as a hulking giant, and I remember being scared stiff, there was the construction of a bridge somewhere. Mom would get out her brochures and say, OK, in two miles we come to such and such a place, and as they drove by, pop would say, well that was the place and mom would say, we were going to stop there, let’s go back and pop would say, oh there will be other places, we will just miss that one. They were back in nine days. Mom was thoroughly disgusted and never forgave him for that trip, but it was just the first of many night mare trips that we all experienced with pop. He was one poor traveler, unless it was to Disney Land.

When they got back to Coos Bay, though, it was clear, grandpa need help and so they were referred to a doctor in Portland. The folks had a birthday party for Brother Bob, it was his first birthday, I remember going over and standing next to grandpa who was holding Bob on his lap and bouncing him on his knee and Bob was having so much fun and smiling and laughing and grandpa was happy. But they were due to go to Portland that afternoon. They had a place for grandma to stay, Uncle Dick was to take care of the farm while they were gone, it was not clear how long that would be, and so they said good bye. But just as he was leaving grandpa must have had a premonition that he was not coming back because he paused at the front door, looked at me and then at mom and said, don’t ever let him forget me. Mom took that as a holy command, a sacred trust, and so, over the years, we would talk about the times that I had spent with grandpa and that reinforced my memories of him and I never did forget him and so pass on those memories as well. Mom admired him very much. He gave me a present, too, that I have always been grateful to him for, too, although he did not know that he had given me the present and that was, I have never been afraid to grow old, I have never feared aging and have never fought it. I have looked forward to it. I enjoy being a grandfather and I enjoy doing the things with my own grandchildren that he never had the opportunity to do with his. By the time grandpa went to Portland that day, he looked old, his face was weathered and wrinkled, I loved that face. It was a special gift.

To be continued.