Red Hot Mutha'

It's never any good when you get a call early in the morning, especially on thanksgiving when your several hundred miles from home. Even though he was sick and nearly eighty, I still couldn't believe it was my grandfather. I expected them to say that he was in the hospital. I mean, it was Thanksgiving. Who dies on a holiday? But I guess it was like him to get out of a holiday, after all.
I drove past the old house and saw the rubber strap he used to fasten the gate to the fence. He always thought the dogs would escape if the strap wasn't secured. Come to think of it, my old black lab might have, once or twice. I guess the new people never saw any reason to take off the strap, even though I'm sure the rubber was cracked by now and they didn't even own a dog.
He took us to the fair, the three of us grandchildren. We were young then and it didn't bother us a bit to dress alike. We got there early in the morning; the cows were still asleep and the horses were wearing blankets. He waved to a man by the stables, and by the time he had finished chatting with him, Pop had a grin and six free packs of Wonder Bread Hot Dog Rolls. They had worked at The Point together, way back when he could lay bricks straighter than nobody's business. I have some of his tools, labeled "Lee" in large yellow letters. When he worked the night shift, my grandmother would take a huge, light-blue bowl of ice cream up the steps to him every evening. He would eat it in the dark, lit by the dim glow of some television show. I never knew him to gain weight or sweat, as he had developed an uncanny ability to avoid both. We were all amazed that on a certain nintey degree day in Disney World, the man was wearing jeans and a long-sleeved shirt and that he actually shouted out loud on Space Mountain. He was having fun.
He was gruff sometimes, and was known to talk while holding a cigar in the corner of his mouth. He didn't like to go out to dinner. Most celebrities, politicians and public figures annoyed him. But when he told his stories, stories of his brother and him playing some trick, or the time he snuck out of the barracks in the army, his clear blue eyes would light up. There's one picture of him in my wedding album of such an ungaurded moment, his eyes caught in a laugh. Had he'd met my son, I would have had the chance to see him like this one more time.
I keep expecting him to show up sometime. After all, he never got to see my new house and I'm sure there's something that could be just a bit more safe with a little tweaking. When I visit my grandmother I expect to find him tinkering with some project in the backyard. I don't remember that in the end he never really got off the chair anymore. I'm no longer seeing the swollen ankles and witnessing his refusal to admit he could no longer drive.
I got my stubbornness from him.