When I was growing up we lived a five minute drive from my grandparents house. Nearly every evening my grandaddy would show up after dinner to visit. He was always going on foolishness with his grandchildren and my favorite was Ya-hooty. He would arrive in the doorway of the family room and announce, “Ya-hooty’s coming tonight.” My parents probably groaned, but I was always delighted. I would stand on the sofa across the room from the doorway and watch as my grandaddy began a foot-shuffling, hootin’-owl conniption. I would get all caught up in his hootin’ and head shaking and forget to watch his hands slip into his suit pockets. At the peak of shouting and jumping he would yell “Ya-hooty” while his pocketed hands would propel treasures of candy into the room. My sisters and I would squeal and scramble off the sofa to collect tootsie rolls and caramels.
My grandfather must have been in his 60’s during the Ya-hooty years. He was always wearing a suit coat because he was a circuit court judge at the time. I am not sure how he reconciled keeping lawyers in line in the courtroom during the day with being Ya-hooty at night. In my childhood the dichotomy never bothered me. Afterhours I watched such silly stuff as his demonstration of the perfect hairdryer when he kneeled on the floor and held his head in front of the heat vent and I followed his advice that swallowing a little Juicy Fruit gum never really hurt anybody.
But now I am grown-up and I watch my children with their two grandfathers. I see what happens to grown men after the child-rearing years and the mid-life crisis. Sometime around grandfatherhood they brim over with foolishness.
My father was a perfectly respectable, hard-working dentist until retirement. Now he plays tennis every day and thinks of ways to amuse his grandchildren. When I call him in between his visits here he says, “Tell Emma and Cabell I can’t wait to see them. I’m going to teach them everything I know.” Last time we saw him he took them to the swimming pool and taught them the chicken stroke. Needless to say it has a pretend-like-you’re-drowning-while-squawking appearance. I was tickled that he could teach them that.
At our house we preach nonviolence and settling your differences with words. My husband and I don’t hit and we don’t want our children hitting each other or anybody else. Then, my father drives up. “Papa,” my son yells and runs up to him. They immediately start a pretend boxing match with little stomach punches which only ends when my father manhandles the 9 year old into a headlock, so that he can give him a nuggie.
My father-in-law is a semi-retired businessman. He had a career that included a stent as president of a large corporation. He still lectures at the local college about business and marketing. When our children were little and we would arrive at my father-in-law’s house for dinner he would announce, “Guess what we’re having for dinner. Ham, lamb, shoate and billygoat!” Now, anywhere we go for dinner the children are liable to ask, “Are we having ham, lamb, shoate and billygoat?” And, thanks to granpa, here’s the blessing at our house, “We thank you, Lord, for these and all our many blessings, Amen, Brother Ben, shot a rooster, killed a hen.”
My husband, now in his forties, seems perfectly sane, but I wonder. I’ve seen foolishness happen to the best of men. “Granpa,” the children will beg, “Show us your teeth.” As I stand next to him I’ll hear the snap of the polydent letting go. The children will be all giggles as I turn in time to see the upper denture pop out of his foolish smile.