That was one of our grandfather’s favorite sayings.
Pow, right in the kisser. And he’d waive his fist in the air, like that.
It was more than just an exclamation – it was an insight on to our grandfather’s way of addressing life: fiercely and with direct intention.
Life did not just “happen” to Grandpa. Grandpa happened, and he happened in a big way in our lives.
Having been raised during the great depression, having served in World War II, and, frankly, having been married to Grandma for all those years, Grandpa had learned hard lessons:
How to survive on very little; how to make something from nothing; the importance of education; the need for charity to your fellow man; and how to have a heck of a good time living life.
While our generation has been trained to buy what we want in stores, leveraging credit cards to get the new “it” thing, Grandpa found what he needed around him.
Whether it was taking those little soap nubs and melting them down into new “conglomerate” soap bars or harvesting and juicing oranges from the trees in his back yard, he created things he could use and enjoy out of practically nothing. We remember grandpa making soap-on-a-rope on a few occasions, when the materials presented themselves.
Recycling was important, even before anyone knew who Al Gore was or why his truth was so inconvenient, Grandpa was handling at least one half of all of Phoenix’s aluminum recycling. Every corner of the house included a can crusher. Whether that meant a lever driven crusher or the gravity-and-muscle driven “Broomstick-in-a-coffee-can-filled-with-concrete” smasher, no aluminum can went uncompressed.
It would not surprise me one bit if one of the cars in the parking lot today contains aluminum from a can that we crushed during our younger years.
And if he wasn’t recycling, he was planting, harvesting or cultivating something. We all remember the award winning, if not downright gargantuan, sunflowers he would grow in the back alley. I recall standing there, looking up at them towering above my five-foot frame, and wondering how something as small as a sunflower seed would grow to such incredible heights.
It was grandpa’s magic. … Magic, and incredibly potent, scientifically developed, and perfectly maintained compost.
Oh yes, compost. If you met our grandfather in the last fifteen years, you heard about compost. I was the recipient of compost literature, and enjoyed frequent lectures on the ideal mix of biological materials that would create the perfect storm of bacteria activity to break down what I thought was “trash” to produce the most potent fertilizer man has ever known. The city gave him worn-out trashcans, modified for composting. But the proof was in the pudding – or the tea, compost tea. This stuff grew six foot tall sunflowers with ease. He even started selling it to locals for a small profit. Given the right equipment and manpower, its quite possible Grandpa would have been the Valley’s king of compost.
Grandpa didn’t come by his compost knowledge naturally – he educated himself. When he first became interested in creating compost, he read. And he read. And he read. He educated himself, and in the process, attempted to educate all of us.
He would explain the process, ensuring our understanding, asking “You get what I’m saying?”
He was always willing to provide us with an explanation so we did understand. He valued education. And he ingrained that principle in our developing minds.
“Get an education. They can never take that away from you.” He’d say. And he was constantly educating us. Whether that meant learning how to shoot a gun and taking hunter safety classes, teaching us how to swim and dive in the pool, or explaining how some mechanical object worked, he constantly taught us.
Grandpa always wanted what was best for us.
He also wanted what was best for others. Our grandparents dedicated a majority of their retirement years volunteering in a laundry list of organizations. But there are two that stuck out in our minds: Desert Mission food bank and the Shriners hospitals.
Grandpa had been a Shriner for many years, and at one point he owned a small Ford pickup truck, painted baby blue.
Then he bought a second one. Except this one was one-fifth of the size and ran on a lawnmower engine. He joined the Shriner’s Transportation unit and would drive his miniature truck in parades. When he wasn’t driving in a parade, he was scaring the daylights out of us, riding in his lap riding up and down his street at what seemed like break-neck speed. We all enjoyed that little car.
He loved the Shriners and all they did for children at their hospitals. He was always regaling us with stories of a kid with burns that they were able to bring from another state to Arizona to treat, or someone with orthopedic problems or our favorite story of the “mermaid girl” who had been born with her legs fused together, and how after being treated at his Shriner hospital, she walked for the first time.
Grandpa and grandma were never millionaires, but their charitable proclivities rivaled that of Virginia G. Piper. Grandpa spent countless hours working to transport food from the food bank to homeless kitchens and outlets that distributed the food to the needy. I can remember grandpa brimming with excitement when he’d describe how many turkeys he was able to deliver in the weeks before thanksgiving. And, somehow, they always came home with leftovers. A box of potatoes, a bag of spinach, carrots, it was always something. But, as he did with anything else, he put it to use, and to incredible effect.
He was a master chef and created all sorts of soups and stews that we all loved and enjoyed. Eating dinner at grandpa’s house was always a fun affair, and it usually meant enjoying a little Pat Sajack and Vanna White with your meal. I’d like to buy a vowel; please pass the deviled eggs.
Grandpa enjoyed his grandchildren. They were always at every one of our games, whether it was hockey, soccer, baseball, volleyball, softball… you name it, they were there. Cheering all along. “Pick ‘em up and put ‘em down” grandpa would yell.
Speaking of “putting ‘em down” I don’t know what the official body count of pigeons in the back yard was, but I know that a large number suffered at the hand of Grandpa and his pellet gun so that Fred and Ethel could enjoy the back yard and its trappings to themselves.
Fred and Ethel, if you don’t know, were two ducks who annually returned to the pool in the back yard to nest and hang out for winter. They made an awful mess, and they hogged the pool, but Grandpa and grandma took so much joy from them, we played along. If we weren’t hanging out with Fred and Ethel, we were taking trips to see the geese down the alley. They loved the wildlife.
Something else Grandpa liked to say was “Show and Tell.” It had many meanings. It was usually as a segue to display his favorite zipper scar from the time he and grandma were in Hawaii and he had surgery to put his guts back together when stitches from a previous surgery had failed and come apart. He giggled with glee as we recoiled from the sight of his scarred belly. But “Show and tell” was also his invitation for you to teach him something. To tell him about your day, your week, what was going on at school, what you’d learned, or what you had finished working on.
Now that he’s gone, its our duty to ask that question of one another, to “show and tell,” and to share in each others lives.
Greg Thompson shared a poem that he wrote in honor of Grandpa Thompson. And if Grandpa was here, he’d be yelling out, “show and tell,” so I’ll do so:
You loved us for what we were and what we had become,
You were always interested in what was new and what we had learned,
You told us stories of your journeys and adventures that you had encountered,
You truly loved the Church, loved God himself, and Jesus,
But most importantly, you loved your family.
You will never be forgotten and the memories and good times we had will last forever.
Some day we will see you again, and all will rejoice in heaven.
