Cockroach Longevity

My parents and I just recently returned from visiting family and attending a funeral down south. This close association with death prompted a little discussion in the car about how we want the end times to go down. Cremation was the order of the day since burial seems to be a luxury of the well-insured these days. Anyway, we got to talking about grandpa and his insistence to be buried and not cremated like his wife and son. He does, however want his wife and son's ashes in the casket with him. Because of his tour in the Pacific arena during World War II, he gets to be buried in the Florida Veterans National Cemetery down in ... um... central Florida.

For real, this cemetery is in the middle of nowhere, next to nothing and across from desolate. But once you enter the perfectly manicured grounds, you suddenly realize where the rest of the military's budget goes. Every blade of grass stands at attention, the bushes that line the sidewalk remind you were you can step and where you cannot, and at every bend in the road, a patch of land has been cleared of shrubby forest and white rounded tombstones watch you as you ride by. This is where my grandpa will be buried with the ashes of his wife (well, we're actually not sure if they ever did get married or just lived together for fifty-odd years) and his son (tragic car accident).

Despite the talk of my grandpa's funeral arrangements, there is no doubt in our mind that he'll be around for a good long while. He may be creeping up his mid-80s, and he doesn't get around too well, but I'll be darned if he doesn't have that cockroach longevity. My parents muse that he'll be around even after they're gone. And it's funny because he hasn't exactly led a life of exemplary health. But neither has he thrown his health to the dogs. He doesn't eat red meat (only fish & maybe chicken. I don't know, I can never keep up with his finicky ways), eats beans (good for the heart, I hear), hates carrots (but we can trick him into eating carrot cake), and drinks that non-alcoholic beer (but thinks it's the real thing).

My grandpa is a case study in wonderment. He's illiterate, but served in WWII (I don't know how he got through the service without reading something....but whatever. I don't think they were real picky back then....or now). Because he can't read, he's VERY picky on what he buys at the grocery store. It has to be the right brand or he doesn't know what he's got. Drove me crazy one day when I went to pick up some medicine for him once. I got the wrong brand. Then I got the wrong form (liquid vs. pill). Then I got the wrong size. I threw my hands in the air and said forget it. Did I mention that the man doesn't drive? Not since I've known him (which is, you know, my whole life). I do know that he had a motorcycle once and he had a big crash that knocked out a bunch of teeth and messed his face a bit. But that was long before my time. And he can pretend to be mean as a snake, but really, the man must have a heart of gold. I say this because when he lived down south (he currently lives in an apartment attached to our house), he had all kinds of animals all over the property. Ferrets, a variety of birds, dogs, probably some feral cats, and who knows what else. Now it is my opinion that people who care for animals have a touch of the sainthood in them. The rest of them might be rubbish, but there's a piece of the divine in them for them to care for another living beast.

And I almost forgot to mention that grandpa used to de-ball skunks. In the back yard. Which was conveniently backed up to the high school that my mother attended. Here she is, trying to survive adolescence, and her dad is taking the stink sacks out of skunks in the yard of the high school. There are no secrets in a small town, but you don't have to give them visual aids. Lord have mercy.

Don't let me forget to tell you that the man has guns. Not just one or two, but a bunch. And not just some sissy BB gun. No sir. My grandpa's got some cannons. Which never struck me as a safe idea. Especially when he was threatening to use my dog as target practice when she rummaged through the recycling bin at night and woke him up. And it's not like he's had these guns since he was a young buck..... nooooo, he's got recent acquirements as well. Just when he was in his late seventies, for reasons unknown, grandpa decided he needed another handgun. And got one. I feel like, if you're over a certain age or mental capacity, you should hand over your drivers license and any firearms you might be hoarding. It just ceases to be a good idea for certain citizens to have either of those after a certain threshold in age and mental stability has passed.

Currently my grandpa has been reduced from a menagerie of animals/pets to one dog. One very neurotic dog. This little beast can see everything coming and going from the driveway and yaps about it for a solid five minutes. Doesn't matter that it's YOU. YOU who have lived there since the beginning. Nope, doesn't change a thing. And yet, the little beast won't yap at the legions of squirrels and the occasional bird that my grandpa feeds right in the driveway. I don't know why grandpa feels it necessary to feed the squirrels. I believe they do enough pillaging as it is. But glance out the window and you're guaranteed to see four or five squirrels munching away on bird food that grandpa lays out on a TRAY in the driveway for them. Needless to say, my dog Rosie loves this set-up as it allows her to come barreling around the side of the house and send the squirrels fleeing to the nearest oak or pine tree for safety. She gives a good chase and I've seen her nearly snag one. Grandpa, of course, hates this and threatens to (once again) use my dog as target practice for abusing his squirrels.

Oh, there are so many more stories that I could tell about grandpa, his neurotic dog, his charming demeanor (and really, I mean his sarcasm), and the bizarre stories he tells of his time with the navy in Japan. Or I could tell about he could make just about anything with wood, including replica weapons like rifles and shotguns. So good, you'd have to hold it in your hands to realize the weight wasn't right. Or how he had gargantuan poinsettias growing as tall as his house in central Florida. And how he and Sally (my grandma) had a table and chairs made out of barrels. Or how he's got a lamp with a pair of hot legs holding up the lamp shade and bulb.

But don't let me forget to tell you about the tattoo taking up the better portion of his forearm. He got this naked lady tattooed on his arm for all the world to see while on a drunken leave from the ship during the war. His commanding officer said "no can do. go back and put some clothes on her." So he went back and had a serpent wrapped around her naughty bits. Or course, by the time I came around and could see it, it was a blurry mess and I had to ask him what it was. Then I could see it. And I thought he was pretty badass too. I mean, how many people have a grandpa with a few remaining teeth left over from a motorcycle accident and a naked lady with a snake wrapped around her on his forearm? You've got to admit, that is one badass grandpa. True to the image, he lives up to it everyday when he defies natural law and continues to go about living like a cockroach after a nuclear holocaust. The man will outlive us all.