Grandpa And The Giant Bear From Vegas

My grandma could barely get the story out without laughing. It was in the early 90’s and my grandparents had just returned from one of their periodic gambling stints in Wendover, Nevada. Escaping the home of Mormon Tabernacle choir, the church of the Later Day Saints and the stringent laws against caffeine, my grandparents would make the two-hour drive west on I-80 to pound some change into the slots and try their luck at the tables.

They hopped into my grandpa’s dark navy-blue pickup truck with the fuzzy, brown, Alf -pelt-interior, which had soaked up the blazing Utah sun, and zoomed away. Only to return the following day with an extra passenger endowed with an enormous head sitting between the two of them and inhibiting the visibility of the angry cars behind them.

Whether he picked her up at craps, the slots, a raffle or some mildly illegal form of poker, I can’t recall, but my grandfather drove home that day with a four and a half foot companion who would become an integral part in the lives of both my sister and myself. Decked out in a red body suit with subtle white polka dolts and a well-coordinated white sweatshirt with a red heart print, she quickly wormed her way into our fledgling hearts. She wore a big, floppy satin bow on her left ear, and with her long, seductive eyelashes, there was little we would not do for her. It’s no wonder that my grandpa couldn’t leave her at the casino.

“There’s someone waiting for you in the back bedroom,” my grandma told us. My sister and I scampered to the back of the house, burst into the room and gasped in awe. Her soft brown fur glistened, her delicate bow shimmered in the light, and she wore multiple hearts on her sleeves, letting us know that she was more than happy to hang out with us from time to time. She towered above me as she stood up on her great big, round, fuzzy feet to greet us. My eyes grew wide. She let us try on her heart-patterned sweatshirt and instantly the friendships were sealed.

“Yes. Binky caused quite a stir on the highway,” my grandmother was chuckling as we emerged from the backroom beaming, Binky Bear in tow.

“Several people would pass us and then whip around to do a double-take at that enormous bear. You should have seen grandpa walking with her to the car!”

And there’s my grandpa – driving his cool, blue, pick-up truck, a giant-bear-in-a-sweatshirt riding shotgun. There he is taking my sister and me bowling, allowing us to sit and play in his prized truck, letting us mess around with the blue, leather-covered steering wheel, and rifle through the dashboard. There he is chuckling as I attempt to emulate him - he in his brown recliner and me in my miniature-red-leather armchair. There he is sharing ice pops with me in the kitchen, letting me walk around in his slippers, bringing in freshly grown cucumbers and tomatoes. There he is adding yet another bowling trophy to the massive collection weighing down the top of the TV. There he is in his white Thunderbird. There he is doing his grandpa shuffle, carefully changing to his dark prescription sunglasses as we head out to the amusement park, wearing copper bracelets on his wrists. There he is setting up the slip n’ slide in the yard despite the fact that it’d ruin his carefully manicured grass. There he is wearing his James Dean-esque white T-shirts and jeans, staying fairly quiet on the other end of a long-distance phone call as my grandma takes charge of the conversation. There he is sharing a box of See’s candies with me. There he is sucking on the end of a toothpick, watching the Utah Jazz. There he is checking to see if I spent the five dollars he sent me in the mail to get ice cream as all good children should.

And there he is endlessly offering me the alluring opportunity to permanently drop out of school and go bowling with him for the rest of time.

I miss you already, Grandpa. Binky too.

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Published:
11.13.07 / 10pm
Category:
what i call life, unschoolish