Sam Sinke's Blog

Tuesday, October 12, 2004
12:59 a.m.
    Here's a picture of my dad from last year. He's standing in front of Sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski's statue of two horses fighting near the Crazy Horse Monument in South Dakota.

    We had a hard time understanding why, exactly, my dad wanted so much to hang on to my grandparents' house in Fairfield Bay, Arkansas. The little retirement community wasn't close to anything. My dad grew up in Kalamazoo and Milwaukee, so he held no childhood memories from the house.
    It was located in the North-Central part of Arkansas, right smack-dab in the middle of the Ozarks, where signs for smoked ham mark the roadside every few miles, antique shops mark the other odd miles, and family trips for locals usually mean each year the family might load up to go to Branson, or Memphis, or maybe Little Rock and the nearby Hot Springs.
    Since we had a large family with four kids, our economics didn't usually allow for trips to my dad's parents' home. And they usually didn't visit us too often. If I had to guess, either we went south or they came north once a year. And if we went down, they didn't come north.
    On our rare trips, my Grandpa Don might take us fishing, or take us to the little beach by the marina. But more often, because I truly believe that our grandparents simply tolerated us for only an hour or so, we would be sent off into their retirement community to see what kind of trouble we could stir up. To do this now, parents would probably be put in jail. Back then, we were sent off until dinner or sundown, whichever came last.
    For me, finding trouble wasn't very hard. There wasn't a day that went by when I wasn't walking back with an injury (the hotwheel had it out for me). The parents would pour bactine or iodine or something that would make me scream, dress it up with something to make sure I didn't bleed all over the other kids' clothes, then kick me back out the door and go back to drinking Grasshoppers or Pina Coladas, or whatever it was they drank in those days.
    My sister and older cousin would force us into stupid projects, or make us go bowling, where they would do their best to humiliate me because it was more fun than humiliating the younger kids. When my last button was pushed, I would retaliate as most young boys do when being picked on, and then the parents would dole out more punishments and add to it some long lectures starting with, “What are we going to do with you?” Had they just smacked me in the head and then let me go do what I wanted to do, I would have had a better time.
    One particularily stupid punishment came when I decided to air up the tires on the two bikes in the basement and then proceed to ride them around the neighborhood. My grandpa went “apey” and then gave me a half-hour lecture about how I should have asked before taking the bikes out. I mean really, they hadn't been used in twenty years, and what if he had to use them tomorrow and I managed to break them? How dare me!
    After the lecture, my dad pulled me aside, nulled the punishment, then informed me that I had done nothing wrong and that his dad was just a foolish old man.
    On a few occasions my dad and grandpa and I would go on some type of fishing trip, usually to some place in northern Minnesota. Outside the fact that neither of them were by any stretch of the imagination any GOOD at fishing, the trips were almost tolerable. Usually I would manage to catch more fish standing on the dock or from shore than both of them would catch all day in the boat.
    The only alternative with these two would have been to spend a weekend golfing with them. And if hindsight truly is 20/20, then I'm better off with my memories stuck out on the lake.
    I've always enjoyed golf. With certain exceptions, like golfing with my childhood and high school friend Chad, or golfing with my mom, I have trouble finding the point. I don't like to keep score, and since there is no running involved, I don't really see it as a sport and more of just a game.
    My dad took me golfing for the first time, and was the first person to suggest that I might like golf. And he did this mostly because his parents enjoyed golf so much that I think he wanted to pass down this alleged family tradition. But I get the idea that he enjoys the game as much and as little as I do.
    From what I remember, my grandparents took my cousins golfing. But they didn't take us kids. Maybe we didn't show as much interest. Maybe there were just too many of us. Maybe they didn't consider us of a high enough caliber or sophistication to behave ourselves on the course. Whatever the reason, it was clear that we did not belong.
    When I play golf these days with my friend Chad, or Marc, or even my mom, I don't have to keep score. I don't have to worry about my next shot. And I don't have to worry that I don't have three different putters in my bag. When I do keep score, it doesn't mean anything to me. And amongst people who golf all the time, I get the strict impression that this is a cardinal sin.
    When my grandpa was well into his 90's, he stopped playing golf. He stopped being a part of the planned activities going on in Fairfield Bay, and pretty much dissapeared from the radar. As this started to happen our side of the family, the same side that quite possibly wasn't of a high enough caliber or sophistication, started to do what we do on my mom's side of the family. We start to “circle the wagons.”
    My dad started to visit more and more, to check his health, to make sure he was handling money properly, to keep the house clean. Us kids, now in our teens and able to drive ourselves made sure we made it down for Christmas and Easter. Eventually, my dad had to be the one to take away my grandpa's driver's license, and decide to place his in a partial-care facility.
    When that happened, my dad didn't sell the house. Instead, he used the opportunity to stay in the house on his frequent visits. He changed where he was doing business so that it was more convenient for him. My dad also saw this as an opportunity to give away some of the things in the house to us kids. I received a painting that hung in the living room. My brother received a small painting done by my grandpa and a little wooden chest. My sisters received a few things, and I believe a couple of things went out to my cousins.
    But on the week of my grandpa's funeral, my dad still kept the house, with the express distate of his sister and her husband. And on the last day of everyone being there, dad told us why.
    My grandfather's dying wish was that he wanted his ashes to be scattered in the backyard, along with my grandmother's ashes. Some of their best times were spent working together in the backyard garden. And of all the places he'd been on earth, that was the only place where he wanted to spend his eternity.
    It seems like such a small thing to ask of his son. But my dad had to lose any relationship he had left with his sister, and risk never seeing her again, to grant his dad his dying wish. With the help of my aunt, my dad, and us four kids, my grandma and grandpa now rest together in their own garden of eden.
    My dad irritates me to no end. He's a crusty old man who never listens to me and babbles on and on about some of the most ridiculous crap I've ever heard. But underneath all that this nasty world has dealt him in the most sorry game of metaphorical poker the likes this universe has ever seen... underneath the story of his right-leg prosthetic, his half-working left arm, his nearly hairless head, and his “Oh my god, Dad, I can MOSEY faster than you can walk” speed, down to the core you will never find as fine of a man as my father.
    Sure, after three days with him, I'm ready to punch him in the head. But give me a few days with Jesus or Moses, I might just want to slap the crap out of them, too.
    Yeah, they're only human. But so am I. And if I wanted to be lectured, I'd go back to college.