Grandpa Don knew I liked mashed potatoes

One Thanksgiving he saw me fill my plate so full of them that there wasn't room for anything else. From that moment on, Grandpa Don knew that Matt liked spuds. He also knew I would do just about any amount of yard work if we went and got a whopper afterward. And do you remember that commercial for Werther's Originals where the grandpa talks about how his grandpa gave him tasty butter candies? Well, Grandpa Don called them "Picker-uppers" and always had them on hand to share when the morning was dragging on.

My most vivid memories of Grandpa Don are cleaning up the yard. You may be thinking that means weeding flowerbeds, mowing the lawn, and so on. Not my yard. I grew up on two and a half acres of old farm in western Washington. There was a field in the front and forest in the back, kind of like a mullet. After a storm the yard would be covered with fallen tree limbs. Early the following Saturday Grandpa Don would come down the long gravel driveway in his pickup, ready to put some lazy kids to work. My parents raised us kids thinking that "fart" was a bad word, so you can imagine our surprise when the first words we heard those mornings included a real swear. "Wipe the chicken (excrement) out of your eyes," he'd say. We'd get up, dress warm, and mentally prepare ourselves for a few hours of "hard labor" on a cold, wet, Pacific Northwest morning.

Picking up piles of wet branches and putting them into the back of a truck wasn't so bad once you got through the first hour and Grandpa Don shared the first round of "Picker-uppers." One time he let me, an eight year-old boy, drive the truck. That was a mistake. No damage was done, but it took a while before he trusted me to operate anything of his after that. I don't remember Grandpa Don sharing very much about himself, but he would listen to us and laugh often.

The last time I saw Grandpa Don was in the summer of 2000. My twin brother Paul, my parents, and I drove down to Coos Bay, Oregon to visit him and his wife Barbara. I figured this would be the last time I saw him as I would soon leave for France for an extended period of time. During this visit, two things happened that I don't remember ever happening before. First, Grandpa Don gave me a big hug and said "I love you." His love for me was never in question, but that is the only time I can remember him saying it. Second, I heard him quote poetry that he had written.

After his passing a few months later, his surviving daughters put together a collection of his poems for the family to have and cherish. Now, nearly a decade later, events have led me to a desire to get to know Grandpa Don better. I hope that by sharing his poems, writing what I learn from them, and inviting other family members to comment on their own memories that I can begin to know the man that I remember as Grandpa Don, the man to whom I owe my hairline.