rock salt: better than a patch

yesterday was my Granddad's 87th birthday. he died late last october while i was in and out of delusional reality with fever. i never really got to deal with it back then, so this post is an attempt to honor Harold Arthur Sturgeon and give a glimpse of his impact on my life.

to do that i first must paint a backdrop. it'll be small, but necessary to get the whole picture.

at 12, i was the one who decided to put velour bucket seats in the proverbial handbasket that would tote me around my destination of choice. highway to hell? please. i expected real estate, or at least a boulevard bearing my name. for this story it's enough to know i had smoked since 9 and sneaked out every night to participate in mostly misdemeanor behavior. in short, i had become unmanageable. my parents were certainly at wits end. i heard rumors floating around the house, "why not let Grandma Hazel and Granddad Harold have a go at it, before he enters high school?" so, i moved from city to farm for what turned out to be just the first semester of eighth grade.

oh yeah, and Granddad was a diesel mechanic as well as a farmer. that's pretty important to the story.

i had been there perhaps a week when i found a way to sneak out in the middle of the night. it involved the flat roof garage and somehow climbing down the diesel fuel tank/pump that stood above tractor height near that portion of the house. sometimes i sneaked out to bike to the nearest truck stop to buy cigarettes or chew; sometimes it was to have just one last lung full of smoke before hitting the hay (you know too much of this country air will kill you); but always, the thrill of doing what you're not supposed to was incentive enough for this 13 year old boy. i guess that's what kept me on the crooked and wide.

on a chilly late autumn night i was enjoying a smoke down by the diesel tank (not the smartest thing i've done, but by no means the dumbest either), when i heard CHK-CHK!

this gig was up.

"boy, you almost got an ass full of rock salt," Granddad explained after he marched me inside. and that's how i lost my taste for vaporized nicotine. come to think of it, he also cured my need to sneak out that night.

i love you. i miss you.