Grampa’s lament

Or The Ballad of Grampa Driver

Hey. I need to see grampa.

I tell you, cause you may say…

some time…

Hey.

I need to see papa.

I need to see him, and make a decision about how to go forward. The way forward. The way ahead.

Do I, as a dutiful son, and POA, hold him to a standard of fact.

Demonstrable truth?

Do I dissuade him from his bent to rage against all things?

Dylan Thomas wrote, “Do not go Gentle…”

DT can spare his words. He’s not going gentle. It’s not his way.

“Rage, rage against the dying of the light,” wrote DT.

He’s raging. Against all common sense and his own best interest.

88 and lamenting

against choices he made

at 28 or 29.

Raging at windmills

if there were any windmills to rage against.

++++++++++++++++++

He hit a moped back in July.

It was parked. He knocked it over.

He didn’t tell anyone.

And since it was apparently made to be a disposable item, it would have cost more to repair than replace.

The insurance adjuster (the guy who guesses how much a repair would cost) explained…

The main shaft was bent a bit, and that’s all it took. Totaled. Costs more to fix it than it’s worth.

So what, he hit a moped. And didn’t tell…

But to Grampa it’s the end…

“There wasn’t a scratch on it!”

First, he didn’t even concede to having hit the thing. Then he was reminded.

Ok, maybe he hit it, but it just barely tipped over, and then he stood it back up, and he left. “And there wasn’t a scratch on it.”

Didn’t someone help you? “yeah, but I didn’t need the help!”

There were 8 witnesses. The guy who helped him asked, sir, do you realize you hit the moped? The guy who owned the moped found it damaged. Grampa left, but the witnesses stuck around. Stuck by their story. Told the police.

They filed a report about an old guy who backed into the moped. Not realizing. He seemed disoriented.

The end of something.

He fought it, and then, when presented with all of the evidence, accepted. Then (and here’s the hysterical part) he FORGOT he had accepted, and now is back to fighting.

At first it frustrated the hell out of me. But now as I think of it, maybe the fight is ok. Necessary. Fighting a lost cause may make no sense, practically, but it may be that the fight against the inevitable is all we have left at some point. Better to fight than the alternative.

Which is to stop fighting.

To prove he’s a good driver.

What the hell? Why is this important?

But it is. It just is, for some reason.

“They call me grampa driver, and once upon a pair of wheels, hit the road and I’m GONE!”

Hey.