Here is a guest post from our friend Michael Haz as he talks about the old days and his grand dad.
Bars. I grew up in bars.My Irish granddad, Mickey, started taking me with him to bars when I was just out of diapers. He'd sit me on the bar with a root beer while he talked with his buddies.He'd drink Hamms, Huber, Schlitz, Potosi, Old Style, Point Special or Chief Oshkosh, depending on which cost less.
I took to cars the way kids now take to dinosaurs. He'd bet some mark two beers that I could (at age 4)identify the make, model and year of the next three cars that rolled past. The mark'd take the bet, and I'd chirp out "1947 Mercury Salesman's Sedan" or "1953 Ford Tudor Flathead V8" or "1954 Buick Roadmaster Straight 8". Granddad would get two free beers.
As I grew up, we'd continue to go to bars together. He'd come to 'visit' my mom (his daughter), say hello, then say something like "Oh..I wanta show Mikey that new car wash.." and we'd drive past it on the way to a bar. By the time I was in high school I'd sit on a stool next to him and listen to him talk about heat treating; his job until he retired at 65
He had an 8th grade education, but some of the things he learned about heat treating wound up in engineering text books. It wasn't unusual after he retired for his old boss to show up with a case of Chief Oshkosh, some metal bars and say "Mickey, we got a problem gettin' this thing hard enough. Whaddya think?"
I'd stop and visit him one my way back and forth from home and college. By then I was old enough that we'd have a few beers together. And I wound up working part-time and a bartender and a bouncer at college bars.
He lived to be 94, and in his latter years didn't like family gatherings. He'd pretend to be deaf so no one would bother him, but I'd sit down next to him and whisper "Hey Mick...wanna go out for a couple?" He'd perk up and say "by God, ya, let's go" and we would.
At the end, when he was in the hospital, I took a couple of beers with me. "Ya want a beer, Gramps?" was met with a weak smile, and he'd take a few sips.
I still go to bars, though I stopped getting drunk sometime in my late 30s. I have a favorite bar, a nice quiet place in the woods, next to a lake, where the bartender knows my name. I (now we) go there for a couple of pints when we can. And a couple of memories.
God love ya, Mick.
Thanks Michael. I will raise a brew tonight in memory of your Grand Dad!
22 comments:
Thanks Trooper. I knew you'd understand. You come from the same kind of people, and they don't make 'em like that anymore.
Thanks for the memory. My dad used to take me to a bar. He would sip a cold beer and I would sip a Green River.
The bartender wore a white shirt and tie. It was dark, cool, and smokey.
Thanks, Michael.
Great story Michael.
There's something about the photo which I can't speak of now but in a week's time, if everything happens according to plan, I won't be able to shut up about.
J has a funny way of seeing the blogosphere--kinda like Islam. Tell us J, who/what exactly is dar al-Hoss?
Great story, Haz.
Gints win, Iggles lose, it's a good day.
That was great Haz. Thanks for sharing. And I bet you got plenty more to tell.
Great story.
Great story. I can relate. My dad used to take me to the bar when I was a small child. My mother was working at the phone company at night for a while so my dad was responsible for babysitting.
They would put me on one of the pool tables with a blanket so I could sleep and take a nap. Evidently I could sleep through anything. One day my mom found out and the shit really hit the fan.
Not that she was against drinking, just toddlers in bars. In later years, they would have cocktail parties at home and I got to act as bartender during the early hours of the party. At the age of 11, I knew the difference between a Black Russian or White Russian and could make a good Manhattan. I was very proud.
lol great story, DBQ.
Really great story, Michael.
I'm afraid neither I nor any of my family have ever been much for going to bars. Not to be a prude, but I can't relate too much to that part of the tale. But a boy never forgets his grandfather, no matter where he and his granddad spent their time together.
What I can relate to is heat-treating. I work in a business that uses a lot of specialized tooling, and heat-treating looms large in our never-ending toolmaking.
When I first moved to Boston, I met an old guy who worked at a large heat-treating shop. Among little-known factoids, Boston is, or has been, the world capital of flute making, and this guy knew all there was to know about tooling for this work and for other woodwind instruments that were made here.
I remember making odd-shaped arbors and reamers that couldn't be ground after hardening, usually out of D-2, a really nasty tool steel. He would be able to harden them and keep them straight and to diameter within a couple of thousandths. And that's, as I say, without grinding. He also hardened all kinds of dies out of the same and other difficult steels, and I never heard of one of them cracking. And doing these were just the beginning of his legendary abilities.
He retired long ago, and things have never been the same. People who work in heat-treating these days know things by rote and don't go the extra mile. But that old guy, and people like him, such as Michael's granddad, were real artists. They were the among the unsung heroes of American manufacturing, making possible all sorts of impossible things, and giving those of us who use tools the means to do our jobs.
So, next time I raise a glass, I'll do it to the memory of Michael's granddad, and hope that his soul rests at peace. And if St. Peter has any sense, despite bad appearances in such a place, he will have installed a furnace or two in Heaven so that these guys can keep their skills sharp against the day St. Michael, for instance, might need another sword.
And you can be damn sure it'll never break.
When do I get a guest spot in this joint?
I would be happy to give you a guest spot Titus.
I love to hear your stories about growing up and hanging out with your Dad in Wisconsin. If you post it in the comments I will highlight with a post.
J said...(really awful things, directed at Titus I think)
Hey J, Titus probably takes it on the chin more than Ben Burkkake does these days, but that's no reason to be mean like that.
So when are you going to show us your vaunted "talent"?
Titus "hanging out" with his father is not a good mental image.
I only got to meet one of my two granddads: My mom was pregnant with me when her dad died and she flew-out to Missouri from England, where my dad was stationed, to attend the funeral. That was my closest approach to the man--in a space/time sense. That is to say, I was kind of there, at a time and place where memories of him were very fresh. It isn't much, but it is all I've got.
My other grandad was pretty old when he married, my dad was the second child and then I was the third of four. So grandpa was really old when I have my first memories of him. He was a tiny Italian who had come to America as a teen, on his own and done well for himself, but he was a modest guy and always cheerful. And also, he saved my life once: I had been sent outside to gather a couple of aluminum lawn chairs. I was maybe 6 and small for my age. I rigged up a couple of chairs with my head through a gap in the tubular aluminum frame and while I was walking back to the house, something shifted, maybe a chair was unfolding or something and it started to choke me. The way I was holding things, the choking would only get worse no matter how I shifted. I was on the point of passing out and falling down would have added my weight to choking action of the impromptu rube goldberg trap I had set for myself.
Grandpa arrived on the scene and untangled me. I don't think he ever realized the straight I was in, he was just helping me with the load of chairs! He probably thought my red face and tears were from the strain of carrying all those chairs, not because I was choking to death.
I hung out with my father quite a bit over the past year.
I was just joshing about waiting for him to die.
We actually had a great time.
It was the most time we ever spent together.
He can be a son of a bitch but we had some good times.
I've deleted my last troll-directed comment. It makes little sense to anyone but the troll. Longtime Althouse troll-watchers might get it, however. Palladian certainly would.
Sometime I'll expound again, in a purple-proseless way, on my Unified Troll Theory. I'm afraid I was wrong last time, and spilled a great many electrons to no purpose but to irritate people.
Some say you shouldn't mention trolls; it only feeds them. Others maintain these are only squiggles on a screen, so why bother with what goes on behind the curtain? The squiggles are entertainment enough without worrying about who, if anyone, pulls the levers.
I respect both positions, but I have a different take. I'll talk about it some other time.
You can't sweat the trolls too much.
I am very tolerant but we have passed that point a while ago and now I am deleting with maximum prejudice.
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