No Good Gene Lasts Forever

Dear Boo and Bubble,

You are very lucky boys to know both of your grandfathers – Captain and Pop Pop.  It was not so for me.  Both of mine were gone before I was born.  Only a few stories linger about my Grandfather Bethany.  I know that when he came courting Eva Crew, he respectfully placed his gun on the fireplace mantel in deference to her Quaker household.  At the time of his death, he was a syrup salesman in Texas and Eva assumed responsibility for his route in order to support your Mamaw Mary and great, great Aunt Dorothy.

Even less is known to me about Grandfather Kendrick.  Stories swirl around about how he might have had a bi-polar personality, having gained and lost several fortunes.  Towards the end of his life, he spent some time in the asylum on Bull Street in Columbia, SC.  In all of the lively conversations around our kitchen table, I don’t recall any references of him at all.  It was like he never existed which was so strange because he certainly contributed half of the gene pool that constructed your great grandfather Schaefer – one of the most gregarious, compassionate and amazing people I’ve ever known.

I did find a glimpse into this mystery man the other day in Granddaddy Schaefer’s editorials.  Perhaps by sharing it with you, some light will be shed on both of them.

“My father was the most organized person I have ever known. Faithfully he kept a daily diary.  In addition to the noteworthy happenings of the day, he recorded the weather, the temperature, and the price of cotton – all in a legible handwriting, carefully punctuated.

When he finished his meal his linen napkin was properly folded and placed back in its silver ring holder.  When he went to bed at night his shoes were neatly lined up under his bed, his clothes hung carefully in the closet; his 21-jewel Elgin pocket watch with fob, along with his cuff links, collar button, tie-tack, celluloid white shirt detachable collar, billfold, pocket change, all carefully positioned in the same place each night on top of his wardrobe.

He had four boys by his first wife, all of whom inherited his organizational gene.  I was the first product of his second marriage and apparently he had run out of that gene, or on its own initiative the gene balked at taking me on when it saw how inept I was to be in it field of influence.

I provided my father with an inexhaustible inventory of frustration in his effort to get me organized.  It simply was, and remains, impossible.

One night he came into my bedroom just as I jumped in bed.  He surveyed the surroundings: one sock was on the back of a chair, the other at the front of the dresser; the shoes had been flung across the room at an imaginary target; my britches lay in the center of the room right where I had stepped out of them and could have been mistaken for a cow paddy had they been in the cow lot; my shirt hung precariously on the bedside lamp.

Exasperated, father said, “Schaefer, this room is a mess.  If I had to get up in the middle of the night with all the power off, I could find all of my clothes.”

                                                                                                                        

Not meaning to be smart but simply factual, I fueled my father’s frustration by saying, “Father, I could too if I knew where they were!!”