Barnstorming on an Invisible Segway

No one asked me to read all of my grandpa's books. It was not assigned, not requested, and in fact I don't remember having any kind of deliberation process for whether this was a good idea. He died on a Monday, the funeral was on Saturday, and on Sunday I packed up and went home, with a box of books in the trunk and the understanding that the rest would come to me as it was convenient, as Mom and Grandma got the house sorted. There was one box that almost went awry because it had a few decorative items that were going to another family member. We got it figured out because I asked after those books, because I knew what was on my grandpa's shelves. I knew my grandpa's shelves.

When I was really tiny, when I went to stay with my grandparents, they had my crib in their bedroom to give my parents relief, and to be with their only grandchild. But when I got a little older, my designated place to sleep at my grandparents' house was on a day bed in my grandpa's basement office. With his books and his desk and his model airplanes. I did a lot of my own reading down there, a lot of writing, a not-inconsiderable amount of daydreaming. And I looked at his books. Some of them I read. A lot of them just waited around until I was older or in a different mood. There were hundreds, and I had time.

It turns out I did have time, and now I've taken that time.

I'm glad I did.

I'm really glad that I didn't try to do it all at once, because that would have changed a good way to know my grandfather better into a grim slog, and I would have resented it pretty much immediately. Instead I worked them into my regular reading--a lot at first, then fewer as time progressed. I was in no hurry to finish, but at the same time I did want to finish. I didn't want this to be a permanent intention and never a reality.

The first of Grandpa's books I read after his death was David Pietrusza's 1920: The Year of Six Presidents. He had actively recommended it to me before he died; it was a gift I bought him that he thought I'd like too, and I did. Pietrusza has a very engaging style, and I wish he'd write more presidential election books. I'd read them all.

The last one I read--yesterday, Sunday, June 3, in case you wanted to know--was The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. I deliberately saved something solid and well-written for last--I didn't want to spend the last of my grandpa's books going "meh," or, "shut up, that guy." This book did not disappoint. It horrified in several spots, but it didn't disappoint.

In between, there were books about birds and national parks, books about the Marine Corps and early aviation. There were lots and lots of spy novels and mystery novels. Things I remembered him getting at Christmas, one thing he got at birth as a gift from my great-grandparents. There was a book that had been his father's--I think my first time looking at my great-grandfather's handwriting. Some of them ended up feeling like they were probably desperation presents when someone in the family didn't know what to get him--either noted down in the front, or I could remember or sometimes guess. Others were books he had loved passionately and read over and over again. I reread classics. I reread things Grandpa had read to me. Other classics--The Red Badge of Courage, Mari Sandoz, Ambrose Bierce--I had never quite gotten to.

I became acutely aware that we--my mother and my grandfather and I--had done a certain amount of division of history knowledge. World War I, for example, was my province; if anyone else in the family needs to know anything about WWI, they can ask me and I will either know or have a solid idea where to find it. Ground warfare in WWII is Mom; air and sea was Grandpa. I took the Seven Years' War, including the US portion known as the French and Indian War in most American schools. The US Civil War was Grandpa's. This became clear as a fairly big problem when Grandpa died and entire swaths of history went missing. Reading Grandpa's books was part of solving that problem. Only part. It was an entire worldview shift. It's an ongoing worldview shift.

It's lonelier. In that one direction, even though my life is not lonely. People are not fungible. The person I most wanted to talk to about this project, the person I had the most to tell about it...was Grandpa.

I'm really glad that I have established the tradition of buying myself a book Grandpa would have been interested in, that I am also interested in, for his birthday every year. When I explain this to people, I say, "I'm not ready to be done sharing books with my grandpa yet," and that's completely true. But in another sense...when I put The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich on the shelf with the other German history yesterday, I cried. It's my book now. It's my book that I inherited from my grandfather, like the Kipling was Grandpa's that he inherited from Great-Grandpa, and now is also mine. But what it meant was that in a very real sense, ready or not, I am done sharing books with my grandpa.

He was a big library user, so I know this wasn't all the books he read, not by half. That's part of what made it simultaneously interesting and possible. If he wasn't such a big reader, books wouldn't have been important to him enough to make this project worthwhile--and yet, if I wasn't such a bigger reader, even this pace would swamp my own reading and make it overwhelming.

I have noticed how many fewer books there used to be. Literally. There were just fewer books available, total. Part of Grandpa's collection growing late in life is that he had both the time and the money to read in retirement, but part of it was literally more books. He read almost exclusively white American men--through no hostility toward other categories, through the kind of omission and affinity that can become natural--but it meant that when I was reading a lot of his books early on, I became aware of how much I valued diversity of all sorts in my reading choices, how glad I am to have those choices and not have to hunt through the literature of 1940 to get the best I can in that regard. I learned a lot about the books aimed at men his age, though, especially war stories. They're surprisingly focused on romance, on the girl left to wait behind, and also on friendship. That's a conversation we could never have had out loud. That's an insight I had to gain this way, after. There have been lots of others, along the way.

A few people who have heard I did this have been horrified at the idea that someone would read their trash as well as their treasures, but for me that was part of the point. Grandpa's Ten Best Books would have taught me something, to be sure, but there are all sorts of Ten Best lists. The ins and outs and intricacies of his hobbies and obsessions, the places where he put his feet up and read and interchangeable mystery novel--that's at least as much the person as the things he thought were wonderful and wise. I feel so lucky to have had the chance and the choice to do this.

No one ever checked up on me, no one ever said, are you really doing that, haven't you quit yet, haven't you finished yet. No one jostled my elbow. Like so many things in his and mine life, this was between me and Grandpa. I'm the only child of an only child. There wasn't any question of a group outing, a horde of grandchildren, a pack of us, what would we all do. There was just me. Just me and Grandpa browsing the bookstore, just me and Grandpa for hours in the library, just me and Grandpa stopping off to get an Orange Julius after, or a coffee for him and a hot chocolate for me, and having a companionable read together when we got home. I can talk to people about the individual books, but in the end this is something that I shared with my grandpa. And I'm so very glad I did.

Today I hit a milestone, an even bigger one than this weekend, when my number in the library's queue to check out the Downton Abbey DVDs dropped below 100: I got through another pile of Grandpa's books.

Those of you who have been reading me awhile know that my grandpa and I were very close, and that when he died, I inherited his book collection. I've been reading them a bit at a time ever since. Grandpa would have been the last person to want me to push aside my own reading for his, and he'd have been the last person to want me to make myself miserable with his books, so when I'm pretty sure I know I don't want something, I put it aside. James Patterson and I, for example, have parted ways permanently. I have learned all I can about Grandpa and his tastes in books from reading the volumes of James Patterson I have already read, and more would do me harm. But there's other stuff in which we're a lot more congruent, and other stuff in which I look forward to finding out whether we are, or at least finding out what Grandpa saw in it.

So the books are all piled on his desk, here in my office. And...that's not the working desk. The only thing it gets used for other than holding books in the to-read queue is wrapping presents. And yet clearing some more space on it feels like a triumph. I'm not ready to be done reading Grandpa's books--good thing, too, since there are well over a hundred left. I haven't counted. But I am ready to feel like I'm making progress. I'm ready to feel like it isn't infinite. I think today, in particular, I needed something to feel like progress, and hitting another thousand words of book is great for that...up until the point where you've said, "I shouldn't have daily or weekly word count goals, that's not being healthy for me right now." Then, of course, you exceed what you would have set for them, the minute you drop them. Which maybe proves the point about how they weren't healthy? But also makes it hard to use them as the indicator of progress in quite the same way.

I keep reading my way through a book one of my godfathers gave Grandpa called The American Short Story. The The is underlined, and they mean it. They don't mean Some American Short Stories. They mean, by God, these are the most famousest ones that ever famoused. This book is remarkably ill-suited for how I talk about books. It's got The Turn of the Screw in it just kind of at random, sternly, this is something you should read, damn you, go read it, after some Melville but before you get to Hemingway. There are more than a thousand pages of this, and they are being quite firm about what is and is not canon. They know best. It isn't a book to read any more than his bird guide was a book to read (I read that too), any more than the Marine Corps Book of Lists was a book to read (I read that too), it's a thing you have to look up the things you're supposed to have read in, and then read them in bits. No wonder it sat in his chair-side magazine rack forever. I understand now. It's a staggering thing in its way.

This has happened to me three times now: I have been waiting in line in a public place with one of Grandpa's books. And a Nice Friendly Old Fella has noticed what I was reading and commented upon it favorably, because Grandpa's books tend to be Nice Friendly Old Fella Approved.

And then like an idiot I tell the NFOF that I inherited my grandpa's books and I am reading through them all.

And then the NFOF tears up. There in line at the post office or Target or wherever else. He gets sniffly about me and my grandpa's books.

I know it's not a bad kind of sniffly. It just makes me feel like a horrible cad, going around reading things and making NFOFs cry, and I feel like I should come up with something else to say that will not make them cry, but it just...comes out of my mouth. And I don't really feel like making a huge effort to avoid my grandpa in conversation. That is about the least Mrissish thing ever. So I just don't know what.

I now know that there is in the world--in my house, in fact--video of me walking in the snow with my grandpa at about age 3 or so. We went out to feed the birds, hand in hand, and I ran a little, and he came and scooped me up. And it was...just so very us.

Really hard to come upon it unknowing, but so good that it exists.

Dear universe: I will let you know when I am okay with this death thing, but for now the answer is still no.

I have always observed Valentine's Day with various people in my life--not just as a romantic love holiday, but as an excuse to give little people stickers and let older folks know I'm thinking of them and like that. Love is for everybody, and my family is a holidaying sort of family. Arbor Day, Syttende-Mai, collect 'em all. We are not theological syncretists much, most of us, but holiday syncretists, oh yes. Give us your cookies, your candles, your lucky money envelopes yearning to breathe free. We're totally there.

But I can't help but remember now that Valentine's Day was the day my grandpa went into the hospital, that last time. He didn't die until over a month later, the day before St. Patrick's Day. I never much liked corned beef and cabbage. I was so glad to have it the day Grandpa died, because it was a symbol of my aunt Kathy loving us and taking care of us, but ever since then the prospect of it makes my stomach revolt, because the smell refers back to not only Grandpa's loss but the day Gran died thirteen years earlier and the college cafeteria had the wretched stuff, and that wasn't anybody taking care of me at all.

And tonight the thaw refreezing smelled a particular way, when I opened the door to let the dog out, that recalled a March visit to Sioux Falls when I was very small, when we took Gran out for Chinese food, after Grandpa had discovered he liked Chinese food, and I walked out to the car with my dad and whacked my head into his hand for affection and he scruffed my hair and it was me and Daddy and Grandpa, walking to the car in the refreezing night, not a memory of anything, just a memory, keeping up with big strides on little legs, being together, Andes mint on my tongue. I know not everybody has that kind of vivid sense memory, but I do, and sometimes I don't know how I'd find my way through time without them.

Under friendslock, one of my friends asked about "bucket lists" or "life lists," and I decided that I should edit my comment to be suitable to repost here: I have deliberately not done that thing, and I intend to keep deliberately not doing it.

I know my own personality and attachment to lists. There are people who could make a list like that and not have it get in the way of them scrapping bits of it to do other fascinating things instead. I am not one of them. What I want to do before I die is continue to cultivate an attitude that allows me to take advantage of the interesting opportunities that come my way, and to continue to create those opportunities from sheer stubbornness if need be.

Most of the best things in my life are not things I could predict in advance. Many of them are predicated on relationships with specific people, and you can't always control all the variables--if I'd been fixated on taking Lillian to a play last spring, I'd have been disappointed, because she wasn't really ready to go when we had tickets to take her and Rob to the Ernie and Bert musical. I think now she is, and we're going to try "Annie" this spring, and in the meantime we had a lovely time with just Rob. Other things are opportunities that come up in unpredictable ways--my parents, for example, would not have put Germany on their "bucket list," but when they had an opportunity to go because of Dad's work, they had a fabulous time and still talk fondly about it among the many trips they've enjoyed. Even in the things we theoretically knew we wanted to do, some of the best moments have been completely unexpected opportunities. When we went to London with the grands, we had no idea they'd be using Buckingham Palace as a screen for projecting pictures in memory and honor of those who served in WWII--but it was really neat that they did, and my grandmother got into a good conversation with an Englishwoman sitting next to us on the kerb watching. The woman talked about her father's WWII service, Grandma talked about her brother who died on the beachhead at Anzio, and they hugged before we parted ways. Grandma would never have written down, "talk about WWII while watching photos on Buckingham Palace" on her bucket list, but it affected her quite strongly.

I occasionally struggle a little with the fact that Grandpa and I didn't get to Alaska together before he died. Going to 49 of the US states together seems worse somehow than only 43, although I would not by any means skip the last six we did, and I remind myself that's what that means--or skipping the London trip, which was wonderful, the one Grandpa listed as his favorite. But if I had not had this damnable vertigo, going to Alaska would have been a good time together, and then if he hadn't gotten that damnable bronchitis and all that followed. And the thing is, I don't want to do that. I want to cultivate an attitude of being glad for the things we did--49 states, for the love of Pete! not to mention the Canadian provinces and more distant foreign countries!--and not sorry for the things we didn't get to do. For some people, the bucket list/life list is a way of remembering their priorities, and I think it's great for people who have the mindset to use it that way--or who need to make that kind of list to get there. For me it would be a source of regret, when I'd rather consider things in terms of opportunity.

I've only said the v-word once here, but it's pretty important. We hope that I can get the vertigo under control and keep it that way from here on out, but I'm also realistic that we don't actually know whether that'll happen. And I would far rather find things that will be wonderful with the abilities I do have than fixate on what I thought would be wonderful at 20, 25, 30, whatever, and spend my time seeing the ways I've been limited instead of the ways I've found ways to enjoy the life I have. Some people find a bucket list a good way to enjoy the lives they have, and that's great. But this is why I don't think it would be that for me.

One of the things I have been remembering about my grandpa lately is how little tolerance for stupidity he had. This may fall under the category of not discussing the faults of the dead, but in the context of his relationship with me it didn't feel like a fault, not the least little bit. He had no problem whatever with educating the ignorant, and his patience with people who were not naturally very quick-witted or were handicapped or had learning disabilities of whatever kind was a lot more extensive than most people's. It was people who could readily learn better and wouldn't who got to him, and he was always quick to make sure I knew that was what he meant. He would call me up when he was dealing with a particular group of people that frustrated him often, and he would say, "Rissy...they've apparently got stupid lying around over there that they haven't even used up yet...but they're trying." And I would say, "Let no one say they're not trying." (I had delighted, when I was about 5 or 6, in the dual meaning of "you're trying," and Grandpa and I sort of kept that as a thing between us for the rest of the time we had together.)

He also had some "saltier" expressions about The Dumb, maybe from his time in the Marines, and a few he cleaned up for me. He was very fond of "when God was handing out brains, so-and-so thought He said trains, and he/she didn't want to go anywhere." He laughed and laughed when I suggested, right before I got married, that this explained markgritter (Mark is very fond of trains). He also used "too dumb to pour pee out of a boot" (which I know was cleaned up from the Marine version) and sometimes "too dumb to pour pee out of a boot with a spigot on the toe and instructions on the heel."

But my personal favorites were "he couldn't find his ass with both hands and a map" or "he couldn't find his ass with a torch and a native guide." When I was maybe 6, I came to him anxiously--I wasn't supposed to have overheard Grandpa fulminating about someone's stupidity quite so vehemently in the first place--and asked if he knew that a British person would think he meant a flashlight and a native guide. He kept an absolutely straight face and decided that he was all right with that. He had another one with an actual flashlight in it, but I'm forgetting it.

I haven't been running into particularly egregious stupidity lately, so I'm not sure why this is at the top of my stack. I think maybe it's because it makes me smile or laugh thinking of my grandpa sighing and rolling his eyes. Also because one of the things I love about Foyle's War is that Christopher Foyle doesn't suffer fools gladly either, and they often let him take the said fools completely to bits sometime in the course of the episode, and some of the things he does when he does that remind me a bit of Grandpa, though I didn't put my finger on it right away.

I am at the bit of The True Tale of Carter Hall where the Queen of Air and Darkness has turned Tam into a serpent and she still has to hang on. I am describing Janet holding this bloody great serpent.

And in my head all I can hear is my grandpa's voice saying, "They're not slimy! People think they're slimy, but they're not, they're dry and scaly."

He was really concerned that I not grow up to be a girl who was squeaky about snakes. I don't know how much of this book he would have liked, but he would have liked that I was clear that they were not slimy. And he would have known that was there for him.

This morning I woke up with my grandpa's voice singing a medley of Credence Clearwater Revival songs in my head. He sang "Looking Out My Back Door" and "Up Around the Bend" and, just as I was waking up, "Bad Moon Rising."

Of course he didn't sing the right words to "Bad Moon Rising." He never did. He loved mistaken lyrics.

I think in some families this would be a disturbing experience, but I found it very comforting. Settling.