23 Skidoo

For Christmas this year, my dad gave me a booklet of stories and poems that he wrote about his own father over the years. My grandpa died when I was about 8 years old, and while I have some fond distant memories of him, this collection of anecdotes definitely made him seem not so far away. Some made me laugh and some made me cry. A lot of them reminded me of my relationship with my dad, the son of a carpenter, who always let me be his right hand girl for projects around the house. To this day he let’s me take credit for putting the final nail in the deck that we “built together” in the backyard of the house where I grew up. The photo above shows us getting started on the construction of the two-tiered, partially covered, massive deck we built. There’s no doubt that I’m the daughter of a carpenter.

Here is a passage from one of the poems in the collection. My dad finished this poem just days after my grandpa passed away. Although I’ve read it before, I think the fact that I am about to become a parent myself brought on a whole new meaning to the poem for me.

It’s called “Home” by Frank Winston.

“Oh if you were once a child, and I were once a boy,

And our eyes were full of Magic, and the world was but our toy.

Then each day was like a quarter we could spend without a care,

Or tuck deep into our pockets with the things we couldn’t share.

     Till the past comes rolling ‘round again,

          Old friend,

               Till the past comes rolling ‘round again.”