Candy Bars and Shenanigans

My Grandpa Downing was a blacksmith when I knew him. He had farmed most of his life, but when he and my grandma moved to town, he eventually opened his own blacksmith/welding shop.  I used to go visit him there, and I remember him with his welding mask on, banging away at his latest project.  He was an artist in many ways, forging picture frames, fences, mirrors, and other great stuff out of metal, horse collars, and riding tack.  He always had bottles of orange, grape, or strawberry pop in his fridge. On a hot summer day, in the shop filled with the distinct metallic smell and the dust from the gravel floor, it was about the best thing I'd ever tasted. 

I loved being with my grandpa.  He had this goofy grin that lit up his whole face, and I can still feel his chuckle that started somewhere deep in his chest.  His hands were gigantic and leathery, but I never noticed as he held me on his lap or when he would let me hold his hand as we sat in church.  If he wasn't at the shop, Grandpa always smelled of soap.  Grandma wouldn't let the poor guy too far in the door without a full hose-down in the shower. When we would leave to go home, Grandpa always gave us a fifty cent piece or two and a Three Musketeers bar.  A full sized Three Musketeers bar.  That was a rare treat I savored for the full three seconds it took me to inhale it before we even got out of town. 

But one of the things I loved the most about Grandpa was his stories.  During the week I would spend there each summer, Grandpa would be the one to put me to bed.  Rather than reading stories out of a book, he would tell me stories I thought he made up.  He told me a different part of the story each night and it began with a handsome young man meeting the most beautiful girl he had ever seen.  I was a sucker for a story like that (and still am).  He told me about evil step-sisters, and crazy car rides on bumpy roads, a marriage, and eventually the three beautiful little girls who followed.  He told stories about the three little girls--the oldest one being so smart and sassy, the middle one being the feisty, naughty one, and the youngest being the one they had to look after.  Grandpa had such a way of telling stories that even today, I can hear his voice and remember how I felt as he shared those adventures each night.  

I couldn't wait to go to bed and hear more about the shenanigans of the girls, especially the oldest as she was definitely my favorite.  Grandpa had timed his stories so that they all came together on the last night of my stay.  At the end, he told me the names of the three little girls--Marie, Mary, and Shirley--my mom and her two younger sisters.  I was shocked, to say the least.  The fact that my mom was naughty was flabbergasting and freeing at the same time.  The way he described his wife of 50-plus years and his love for her still stick out to me all this time later.  My Grandpa Downing was an amazing storyteller.  But in telling me the stories, he did so much more than entertain a little girl and help her go to sleep.  He gave me a sense of who my mother was and how much she was loved by her daddy.  He showed me what true love looks like--for a wife, for his children, for his grandchildren.  He showed me how to invest in our children, and to pass down the stories of our own lives to help give them a sense of place in their own.  

His gifts to me weren't really half dollars and candy bars.  His gifts were his time, his devotion, and his stories.