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Sunday, September 23, 2012

Firsts

When I was a freshman in high school, my grandparents came to watch my brother Matt and me while my parents went on a vacation somewhere. I don’t remember where they were taking us, but I do remember Matt was cracking me up, and my grandma was yelling at my grandpa about his driving. We made a joke about someone having mono and I made my grandma laugh by calling it “the kissing disease.”

I asked them how they first met. I don’t know what inspired that question. I wasn’t a particularly curious kid and I was not at all aware of the world around me. In retrospect that seems like an awfully important question to ask ones grandparents. The answer leaves open a lot of what ifs. It’s a love story that almost wasn’t. It’s a love story that paved the way for countless other love stories.

World War II had just ended and my grandma was working at a bank in Chicago. She was engaged to some guy who was working for the Army, but he was off doing something in Europe. One day she called a cab so she wouldn’t have to walk in the rain on her way to work. The rain stopped, but she didn’t want the cab driver to lose his commission so she took the cab anyway.

The cab driver was my grandfather. He had just gotten back from serving in the Navy.

I don’t know exactly how things progressed from there, but I do know he asked her out and eventually proposed. She waited for her fiancĂ© to return from Europe and ended things with him before she said yes.

They got married and had seven kids. My grandpa owned a pizza place for a while and then sold insurance for a living. One time my grandma threw a glass jug of milk across the dinner table at my grandpa. My grandpa enjoys crossword puzzles, mysteries, and handball. My grandma has the most wonderful laugh in the world. My dad once told me he tried to imitate the home life they gave him with the one he gave my siblings and me. They’re amazing people.

gramsandgramps

After they finished the story I asked my grandma how my grandpa drove back then. She laughed and said “like a hotshot.”

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