Yesterday was the anniversary of my mother’s father’s death, Donald Ackors. Actually, as I write this, it’s today, as I tend to write posts the day before and then schedule them.
I want somehow to summarize in a few short words what kind of man he was. What kind of impact he had on me. There’s more than just his genes in my blood. Bits of his character, his personality, have passed on to me too. I feel like the more I understand the man, the more I understand myself.
I have his ears, when it comes to physical traits. I have enormous ears that stick out from my fat head. When I was younger, this was especially disconcerting and kids called me “Dumbo.” Any time I got upset about it, I remember my grandfather showing me how he wiggled his ears, and I felt better about it for a while.
He worked most of his life at a Goodyear tire factory. All the details about the tire plant in “Work, With Occasional Mole Men” come from growing up around him. The layoffs, the strikes, the long late shifts. My grandfather worked nights for much of my early childhood. We had to be quiet on the front porch next to the bedroom so we didn’t wake him while we played. I sometimes thought of him as a sleeping bear in there. You did not want to poke that bear.
I asked him once, later in life, what he did at his job. He said “mostly, I sign papers.” He said he signed so much paperwork, it hurt his arm. I asked why he couldn’t just get a stamp. I can’t remember what his answer was, but I know he laughed at that.
God damn, did that guy like to laugh. He loved laughing and he loved food. I can’t overstate how much he loved food. Not fancy food, either. Anything. Some days later in life he would spend the afternoon talking and anticipating whatever they were having for dinner. He loved good Mexican food, and would go to the ends of the Earth for a proper tamale.
He loved family, too. He told me once that he wished he had spent more time with them and worked less. Most of us end up with that regret. Hard to learn that lesson, somehow.
I remember the day I realized he was human. My family plays a team card game called Pitch. You capture suites of cards for points and such—I don’t really know how to explain it. My grandfather was a demon at it. I was just learning how, and he was helping me, standing over my shoulder. I was just starting to get the handle of it, and he gave me some bit of advice and I snapped, “I don’t need your help!” He walked away without a word. Everyone else got very quiet. I remember the look on his face, like I’d slapped him. I felt horrible, but I was shocked to know that he could be vulnerable to me like that.
He read romance novels by the pound. Seriously, they didn’t by them by the book—they went to a used book store and bought them in tied up grocery bags by weight. I never saw him reading anything other than a romance novel. Tough factory worker, born in the desert, a fisherman and a hunter. And he devoured a dozen Harlequin romance novels a week.
One of his buddies from his time in the military once said: “You never saw Don without a book in his pocket.” He looked like James Dean, but with a romance novel in his pocket. He got a lot of action back then, or so I am told.
It’s hard to talk about him without talking about his wife of 40-some years, Janet. He loved to laugh, and my Grandmother loved to make him laugh. They bickered and bantered in a way that I can only aspire to. After she passed, I asked him once how they had done it—stayed together for so long.
He struggled for an answer. Thought long and hard before speaking. Then he said, simply “I loved her.” No startling wisdom. Just a simple truth. He did love her. We all did.
I can’t actually summarize the man in a few words, at least not to do him justice. He deserves an epic, a biography. Not just a few words typed up one afternoon on the anniversary of his death from a heart attack. Odd, that he had a pacemaker which was supposed to help prevent such things.
My mother said that he probably felt the thing going off and didn’t do anything about it. He missed my grandmother too much.
The Christmas before that, Sarah and I were back home. The whole family gathered at the Carbondale City Hall and had a feast. I asked him questions about what it was like to serve in the UK in the 50s. I asked him how long he had been over there. He told me down to the minute. I wish that I remembered exactly how long it had been.
It was our… first or second? Christmas after Janet died. He had lost a lot of weight and was looking good. He was taking care of himself.
When we were getting ready to leave, we hugged him and said goodbye. He never hugged, not ever. He wasn’t that kind of affectionate. It was an awkward hug, but a long one.
“We’ll see you next year,” I said. And he gave me a sad look and said “I sure hope so.”
Somehow, he knew that would be the last time we would see each other. I wish I’d said more then. I wish I had told him how much of an impact he had on who I was.
But then again, I think somehow he knew without me ever saying a word.
