Postcards from a Cooler Generation PART ONE

  I kinda dig old men.
 I like to say it's been going on the last few years, but when I stop and think about it, I've always had a thing  about old guys.
    I love their stories.
    My High School Theatre teacher qualified as an "old guy" ---HE WAS OLD TO ME--and was a Vietnam Vet.
    My grandpa was from the  WWII Silent Generation. Those guys are awesome, because they don't want to talk about it. I cannot fathom going through something so traumatic that I won't talk about it. I had to travel to Hawaii, boat to the Pearl Harbor memorial, see my family name on the memorial, come back home, and trap my grandpa in a corner in order to learn that "RL Wyckoff" on the Arizona was his cousin.

  I HAD TO ASK! THAT'S KINDA BIG NEWS FOR OUR FAMILY, GRANDPA, DON'T YOU THINK? He shrugged "He was my cousin, I didn't know him that well."  And with that, he was done talking about it.
 
     The last few years I have found myself milking stories out of my dad, my uncle Bob, and randomly crossing paths with Delightful Old Gentlemen! Some I get their names, some I do not. Some just offer me a seat, or comment on my coffee choice;" Ha, you have to wait, you gotta fancy one, didntcha? I got mine fast and I can leave: just coffee." They are all pretty much in their 80's, except for dad and uncle Bob, who are 70's Kinda Guys.

        My dad, uncle Bob and uncle Leroy all drive to Frederick together to get their hair cut by my barber brother in law. It's beyond cute. Todd's shop is barely big enough for the four of them, yet I can imagine them all sitting along the wall, catching up on gossip and mishearing every other word.  Todd is ex Army, my dad was Navy and I don't know if Bob or Leroy have military affiliations, but I am sure they do have opinions. When I sit with Bob, I just listen to whatever story he has in the moment, or ask him about being raised in Denver. I've never asked about military. Bob is the source of The Best Racist Stories Ever in my family.  It was at his wedding (Bob is Hispanic, by the way. We are not)  that an Aunt stood up and loudly asked "Who let in all these Mexicans?"I LOVE THAT STORY! I have no memory of that particular Aunt, and I think I was present at that wedding, albeit very young. However, if I was there I have no doubt that moment imprinted on my brain. He helped the stereotype along by threatening to cut off my ears and make tacos out of them, and wielding kitchen knives while saying "Mexican Credit Cards". I didn't get it. My cousin had to explain it to me. "He's saying he robs people with knives."
"Why would you rob people with knives? He has his own knives." Even at a young age I appreciated commas.
"HE ROBS PEOPLE. HE USES KNIVES TO DO IT."
"No he doesn't, he's in the kitchen,"
"He means Mexicans. Use knives. To rob people."
"Why?"
At that point I'm pretty sure I was punched, or tripped, or walked away from.

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One night at the pub, my dad told me stories of being a kid on the farm in Genoa. None of it had I heard before.

He told me my grandpa left home  when he was a kid by hopping a freight. There were too many kids in the house during the depression, so he hopped a freight. Rode it to California. With a guy who died.
...."dad?''.....
"Ya, he wouldn't talk about it. Fella died on the trip I guess."
How John Steinbeck.
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  They also lost an entire herd of sheep one winter. Before he had cows, my grandpa had sheep.  A Lot of sheep. The number escapes me, hundreds. A storm blew in, and out there in Genoa there is no cover. It's all flat, a few ravines, which in my memory are just ditches. Sheep, it turns out, aren't the brightest of God's creatures. They all crammed themselves into a ditch, right up against one another, to stay warm or get out of the storm. They crammed so close they suffocated. Every last one of them.
  An entire herd of dead sheep.
  Dad said it was several trailer truckloads of sheep. They had to be removed.
So by the time I came along, grandpa had cows, and chickens, and  a dog and no sheep.
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When grandma and grandpa got married, they had the plot of land in Genoa. No money to build a house, just enough for the land. So they dug a hole in the ground and set up housekeeping under a piece of plywood (dad says it may have been tar). Like prairie dogs. Until they could afford the house, which they bought and had transported to the land ---which is so cool to me---and had it placed over the hole in the ground. Which became their cellar, and is the place I remember going down into to explore as a kid. I still have weird dreams about that cellar, mostly about being trapped. They lived in the house for 30 ish years, and no tornado ever touched the house. Considering how dearly tornadoes love that corridor of eastern Colorado, I think it was God's way of giving them a break.