The Old Man in the Camper Trailer

Recently, I was at the Elder House's drive to help raise money for this nonprofit organization. They help people who are handicapped, elderly parents and even veterans, who need to be somewhere, while the family is working. While there, I was reminded of my own grandpa.I really didn't know my grandpa, he was someone my mom used to visit. We'd spend afternoons at his blue and silver striped camper trailer in the Traveler's Court on the south side of Torrington. Usually, grandpa would kick us boys out of the trailer, and my brothers and I would hang out by the North Platte River. We'd go watch the raging water flow from beneath the bridge. Once in a while, we'd see a fish or two flopping around the shallow area. Sometimes, we'd hang out in the trailer. I'd watch grandpa doodle with his crosswords, or just sit there with his beer. He always had beer in hand, and he would sometimes let me taste it. The cold salty taste always made me want more. I'd watch the beer foam up as he poured salt into the glass.On rare occasions, grandpa would be a different sort of person. Sometimes, he'd have out his banjo, or his violin and would play a song. Other times he'd get out his junk jewelry and tell us that these gems were very precious and were worth a lot of money. While on other occasions he'd just talk about people who I had no clue about.He really didn't talk to us. He just talked.I'd go lay down in the back room and look at the cartoons he had pasted on the wall above the bed. One was a man with a forked tongue and it read, White man speaks with forked tongue. I really didn't know what that meant at the time, but it was a peculiar thing to have pasted on the wall. Grandpa would always tell us he was an Indian. Mom would always laugh and tell him, "no your not, dad." Grandpa had grown up outside the Pine Ridge Reservation in Martin, South Dakota. Mom said he could speak the language and used to have a lot of friends there. However he was not native. He was raised around the res. He always said that he remembered Chief Sitting Bull being paraded around town.The longer we stayed at the trailer, the drunker grandpa would get. At times I really didn't want to be there. He would have to say something mean to my mom before we'd leave. I always thought to myself, why do we come over to this place. Mom would always manage to say something about that she needed to take care of him. On one visit, grandpa had a record on the phonograph. The record was of Lawrence Welk and his band. Grandpa sat there listening to the album. During the middle of one of the songs, he remarked. "I wrote that song." I really didn't listen to anything he'd say, but this caught my attention. He continued, "yes, I used to play with the Lawrence Welk Band, but they tossed me out for getting drunk, all the time."

I could see a tear begin in his eye. I never forgot that moment, it was the first time he'd showed any real emotion about anything.Once he talked about, how he never could remember his mother, when he was about 7 years old, his dad took a frying pan and smacked her in the head. The only photo he had of her, was the wedding photo from 1902, but he left it in one of the motels the family had been staying in back in the 40's. She was sent away to the hospital and never returned. He was raised by his dad part of the time and an Aunt in Souix Falls, South Dakota, Aunt Anna. I really had no information on her, until recently. That is where he would have met the band.I always thought he was raised in Gordon, Nebraska. However, that is just where his dad's family were all located. He never had much to do with them. Just probably on an occasion when his dad went to visit his brothers.Going through old photos, mom would always tell us what they were, or who they were. One was of grandpa on a train. She'd say he used to be an engineer for the railroad and another photo was of grandpa with a car and she'd say he was a body and fender man. I really didn't know what he did, all he ever did was sit in the trailer and drink.On my search, I came across Cousin Rose. Rose is my grandmother's sister's daughter.

All she could talk about was Hank. Hank this and Hank that. Hank is what everyone in the family called my grandpa. She told a story of hardship for my grandmother and the no good person my grandpa was and how cruel he was to my mom and her siblings. Rose told that one winter, somewhere in the 40's, great grandma received word that Midge, my grandma, and the kids were on foot somewhere in Iowa. Great Aunt Nelly and cousin Rose got into the car and headed toward Iowa, seeking her older sister. Rose said, they found the family on foot somewhere by Omaha. She said that grandpa had left the family in Souix

The neighbor kids would come by the house and go to his trailer. Not for his company, but I think he was giving them beer. I don't know, but when I went over, he would have nothing to say.On a Friday, I went to the skating rink in Torrington. I usually went there to meet up with my friends and skate. On that night I got a call at the rink from a friend of the family. She said that grandpa was in an accident. I asked, and the little camper trailer had blown sky high. Grandpa was messing with the gas pipes to the stove and blew himself to kingdom come. He had to be airlifted from Torrington Hospital to the Denver Burn Unit. On the way to Torrington, he had told mom and the ambulance drivers that he was going to make it and he really didn't need to go to the hospital. He would doctor himself up with some absorbing jr.I remember, he had lived a few days at the Burn Center. We went down to keep him company while they fixed him up. When I saw grandpa, I held his hand. He was completely pink. They said that they had removed all the burned tissue and he was burned 70%.

Mom stayed with him until he passed. I remember him shaking and mom in tears, we are with you dad. You are going to make it. We love you. Ruby is here, and all the boys are here. Laying under the chairs in the waiting room, wishing that day would end. I could feel mom's pain. I loved mom and knew she loved this old man. When grandpa passed, the TV show Dallas had just begun. All I could remember the first scene when Pamela finds Bobby in the Shower. As that scene came on the nurse came out and said grandpa had passed away.I asked mom a few years later what grandpa had said to her in the ambulance and she said that he said he was sorry for treating her and her mom the way he did and that she was his daughter. However in my research mom said he didn't say that and that she just really wanted him to say it.Grandpa is not buried anywhere. There is a joke about having canned grandpa. His ashes are still in the can sent by the mortuary and is still in my mom's closet. I asked her if she wanted me to take it to his grandparents in Gordon, she told me no. Grandpa will always be with her.