Images of the past

These are my grand parents, Imogene and Russell. This is the only picture I have of the two of them together, and to my mother and myself; their relationship has always been a mystery. All I know is what family members have told my mom, and then she passed to me. I know that my grandfather love her, they lived in Mexico for her health, he read poetry to her, I once got to overhear a story about Imogene’s driving. She got stuck on train tracks somehow and somewhere in there the car didn’t survive a train wreak (don’t quote me on that, it was a long time ago) and I know that when she died he was fixing a roof. I’d like to think that the last tidbit isn’t as bad as it sounds…maybe he was at such a loss because of her impending death that he couldn’t face it. I’ll never know.
Don’t they look happy though? He must have just said something funny, because that grin on her face can only be because of some small joke, or comment on passers by. I wonder who took the picture? What was it that they were doing? Is that really a cigarette in his hand?!?!?! They are such a beautiful couple. You can’t tell from this snapshot, but I have proof in the form of other photographs.
My grandfather was a very mysterious man to me. He was quiet, hated cats to the point of actually hunting them down and disposing of them, he rode a motorcycle well into his old age, he loved guns, and playing practical jokes on me. He had his own room in their house, and that is to where my father disappeared when we got there. I was only allowed in there once or twice, but the one time I remember really well, he told me to put my tongue on a 9-volt battery. I knew that I shouldn’t trust him and my father…dad didn’t say anything, but he looked at me in such a way that told me I was being tested. The problem is I wasn’t sure if he wanted me to trust him, or stand up to them and say no. I decided to trust them. Bad idea. My tongue got zapped, and they laughed at me. I do not like being laughed at, so I found a way to distract them from my stupid mistake, and suggested we call my little brother in. You can imagine what happened. He trusted them too. I got a laugh, and felt better. (This is a pattern here…) Once I walked past grandpa’s room and saw him lying on his bedspread with his headphones on, with his eyes closed. He had a smallish room, so he was able to push his bed right up against a shelf in the corner, so that his radio, television, and I’m sure at least one weapon was in easy reach. The headphones were so he wouldn’t bother Grandma (Marcella, whom he married when my mother was three-ish, and the only grandmother I’ve ever known)
Another sacred place was the gun shop in the basement. It smelled like gun grease, and was small and dark. The room was made of plywood, and was mostly shelves. Guns, gun parts, and various tools littered every inch of space, and everything smelled like a combination of gun grease, wax, hot lead, and wd-40. I only remember being in there a couple of times, but I soaked up the atmosphere. This was where the man-talk happened, the male bonding, the planning, and defiantly the more interesting conversations going on in the house. On one side of the room was a set of smaller shelves, all of which were crowded with neat rows of baby food jars, with the lids nailed to the top of the shelves so that grandpa only had to unscrew the jars to get to the contents. I remember lots of dirty screws, washers, bullets, and grease. I was so young at the time that both men towered over me. I must have been barely waist high, but the unusual honor of having my girl-hood being excused, and being allowed to enter was enough to set this memory in my mind like concrete. I admit to having no clue what was talked about, I was just there to soak up their presence.
I remember very well the gun shows I was taken to, and the red stuffed heart pillow I got at one of them (or was it a flea market) and the corduroy teddy bear Grandma gave me to play with, which I had until the house burnt to the ground in 1998. I still have the heart because I wrote BJ + Stacy forever on it back in 94 and when we broke up I shoved all of the evidence in a box and hid it in the storage building in the back yard, which, thankfully had not caught fire.
Also, my very favorite thing to do was target shoot. My mom, dad, and grandfather all taught me gun and range safety, dad teaching me to shoot my first guns, and both him and “Russ” testing me. Always with the testing, they drove me nuts. I was asked to collect lead from the mounds of red clay so they could melt it all down and make new bullets, but dad’s true idea was to test my methods…would I make sure they had the guns unloaded and placed out of the way, or would I just run out in front of them…I hope you know I’m smarter than that! Those are my favorite memories though. The nut balls shaped me, probably made me the paranoid person I am now….