10-2-08

Everyone should have their own personal Popeye

My mom’s father has sort of been a hero of mine throughout my life. I don’t know what he was like as a husband or a father, but as a grandfather he was a superhero.
My furthest memory is of him and my grandmother living in St. Mary’s County, Maryland. He did a little bit of farming with his blue Ford tractor. Their trailer was situated on a piece of property that helped keep the Patuxent River on its correct track out to the Chesapeake Bay. He had a small motor boat that we would go out fishing on and somehow I always caught all of the fish. There was a live well on the side of his dock that was always full of blue crabs. We would dip out a few dozen every once in awhile to steam for a Saturday afternoon feast. We love our crabs in Maryland.
Marvin Hayes was a finish carpenter by trade. He built the house that I grew up in. I always thought that it was just the coolest thing in the world. None of my other friends could say that their grandfather actually BUILT their house.
He is now 85 years young, skin like leather and thin as a rail. I always thought he looked like Popeye. Mostly because I thought he was so strong but the fact that he had a very pronounced chin helped quite a bit, also.
Not too long ago, Grandpa Hayes built another house for him and my grandmother, (Grandma Hayes). When my dad, brother and I built a large screened-in deck on my parent’s house, he was there swinging a hammer, climbing ladders and lifting beams. He worked us all ‘til the sweat and salt was bleaching our shirts.
Grandma’s health has been giving her trouble over the years. Grandpa has had to step in and do a lot of the work around their house. He cuts the grass with a push mower, does all of the upkeep inside and even cleans the bathrooms. Often he sits in his screened porch with a B-B gun and waits patently for the squirrels that pillage the fruit from his trees. (They live in Florida)
My mom and dad went to visit Grandapa for a few weeks when my mom found out that his doctor was sure that he had a small stroke. She found out when she was talking to him on the phone and his speech was slurred a bit.
“Dad, what’s wrong. You sound funny,” she asked.
“Oh, the doctor said that he thinks I had a stroke,” he told her. She wasn’t too happy that he was still working as hard as ever.
Anyhow, while they were visiting and my dad was helping good ol’ Marvin. He was up in the orange trees pulling fruit and climbing ladders to walk the roof and clean the gutters. He wore my dad out. Dad, at one point, said, “Marvin, why don’t we take a break and cool off.”
He replied, “Sure, go ahead if you need to.”
Marvin is a rather creative man. He always looked for something to do when he and my Grandmother would come up to visit. One time he had noticed that we had a problem in our yard with moles. Grandpa told Dad that he could take care of it if wanted him to.
“Sure, what do you need?”
Grandpa told him, “ A shovel and a beer.” Dad fetched the items and stood back and watched. Grandpa drove the shovel into the ground, rested his forearm on the top of the handle and opened his beer and took a sip. My Dad asked what he was going to do.
“When I see them move through their tunnel, I’m going quickly flip them up and kill them with the shovel.”
Dad asked, “Well, what’s the beer for then?”
“To drink,” Grandpa said without missing a beat.
I don’t see my grandparents as much as I would like to, but I do have great memories of working in the yard with him, riding on his tractor, fishing from his boat, and sipping the “poison” off of the top of his Milwaukee’s Best. I sure hope that my son will have time to get to know him.
I sure hope that I can be the Popeye to my son that Grandpa Hayes is to me.
Bryan Pinkey can be reached at bpinkey@nccox.com.