Often, on the way to and from New York City riding the Taconic State Parkway I think of my grandparents. They would travel from their home in the Hudson Valley, the house we still own, to visit my parents, my brothers and me. I found something idyllic about their leisurely retirement lifestyle — the way they were free to come and go, seemingly without a care in the world, while my young life was bracketed by school, homework and my failed attempts to be popular.
Their vagabond lives also stood in contrast to that of my parents with all their appointments, commitments and responsibilities amid the swirling chaos of our household. My three younger siblings and I bore some responsibility. New York City apartment dwelling amateur sportsmen, we frequently amused ourselves by engaging in athletic pursuits in our bedrooms, such as soccer baseball. For those unfamiliar with the sport, it conformed to the rules of baseball but using a soccer or volleyball in place of the far smaller projectile employed in the practice of our national pastime.
The predictable result from our “in the park” home runs — apart from the occasional beatings my father administered when our recreational activities startled him from slumber on weekend mornings — were smashed light fixtures and cracked TV tubes. We were made to pay handsomely for their repair or replacement by getting docked our allowances more or less in perpetuity until my mother, a softy at heart, forgot the precipitating infraction and restored us to solvency.
My grandparents — I’m speaking of my father’s parents, not my mother’s who lived in the adjacent apartment building — would also sweep in for extended babysitting stays when my parents departed for their annual southern winter vacation. They were only half-hearted disciplinarians. My grandmother, Myra, would bestow gifts upon us, such as a Venus colored pencil set on one occasion that I’d coveted wildly. My grandfather, Ben, was somewhat less beneficent. I can’t recall whether it was in high school, college or perhaps even young adulthood when I briefly moved backed home and invited a girlfriend to spend the night, in my room, explaining that my parents allowed it. I remember my grandfather’s unequivocal reaction. “Like hell you are,” he said.
And once my mother and father returned from their vacation, it didn’t take long for my exhausted grandparents to vacate the premises and return to their upstate idyl. They “made” antique lamps to supplement their retirement income. My grandmother was the artist, my grandfather the engineer. Employing elements such as marble bases, chandelier crystals and ormolu they crafted instant Victorian heirlooms that they sold at country auctions.
I clearly romanticized their lives. They had their worries like everybody else. Myra, a bubbly, loving creature, once told me frankly that they had enough to make ends meet but “not to tie a bow.” Ben, was taciturn, just this side of uncommunicative. I was twelve-years-old before I spent any extended time with them at their home. It happened at the end of the only summer that I attended camp while the rest of the family was abroad. They’d built me a beautiful playhouse when I was child but I saw it only once. My parents, city people, were too busy to take us to visit. And the one time they did my brother and I missed TV so much that the trip was cut short.
I helped my grandfather repair the cracked front steps that twelfth summer — or rather I watched while he worked — only to forget his admonition not to step on them until they dried. The wet cement spilt, forcing him to start from scratch. But not before he spontaneously but entirely understandably erupted with a shocking expletive, at least shocking to my tender, sheltered ears.
Ben had owned a factory on the Lower East Side that made lampshade frames, that know-how contributing to their antiques enterprise. I suppose that he conformed to the definition of the strong, silent type; while Myra was prone to hysteria, especially if she spotted a large bug in her basement. On the other hand, she was no snowflake. When her husband occasionally got pulled over for speeding, Myra would sniff that he was the only motorist traveling slow enough for the cops to catch.
Their lives were less than blissful in other ways. My grandmother was largely deaf and suffered from cancer through much of her adult life. When she died of the disease at the age of seventy-two I was in college and hadn’t seen her for a couple of years. That was by her choice, as much as she loved her grandchildren. She didn’t want us to see her ravaged by disease. Ben wasn’t the same after that. He told my father that he could hear his wife’s voice echo through the empty house. He passed away six years later. According to my dad, the only time he visited a doctor was the day he died.
I think of them often. The home is grander than it was in their day. The underbrush has been replaced by lawns. A lovely pond sits where an expert from the local extension service once told them their soil was too porous to achieve their dream of having water on the property. Life is always more complicated than it appears from the outside. Now that I’ve reached their age I realized that their lives weren’t as simple or easy as they looked. Whether it’s health, money or politics we’re always being shadowed by something. But they loved each other and the life they made together. One could do worse than emulate their example.
Ralph Gardner Junior is a journalist who divides his time between New York City and Columbia County. More of his work can be found in the Berkshire Eagle and on Substack.
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