I Never Saw the Shadow

Believe it or not, I own an old boxed, variable speed record player (that's right, folks) that my grandparents got each other for their first Christmas. It still spins them like a pro - it recently crackled out Gerry Rafferty's City to City LP for me. I've got all the good stuff - Seals and Crofts, Sheena Easton, Jim Croce, Chicago, Air Supply, Christopher Cross, and a gob of old 45's that I haven't even gotten around to listening to yet (except for the Frank Sinatra and Nat King Cole records - those got fished out first). I wonder about every little nick and scratch on the thing, trying to envision the circumstances that brought them about.

Now, I might let you talk me out of one of the records (most people reading weblogs would probably prefer my keeping them, though). But the player's a no-go. It brims with the presence of my grandfather. The box is replete with his trademark: embossed labelmaker stickers, proudly declaring "This Side Up," "Our 1st Christmas," and "40 Years," though that mark has long since passed. It still smells sweetly of old dust and vinyl, taking me back to childhood days spent playing Chinese Checkers with my grandfather and tooling around in his 1964 Ford Fairlane - sea foam green, with vinyl covered seats, the occasional errant hammer, screwdriver, or fistful of napkins, and a small oscillating fan on the dashboard (I kid you not).

He and Grandma and I would sit and speculate about how big the raindrops were that day, how people could possibly bring themselves to spend $100 on a pair of rollerblades, how tart cranberry juice can be, how you get used to the trains at night when you live nearby, how front-wheel drive cars are inherently evil ("Wouldn't give fifteen cents for a front wheel drive car," he'd always say), and how computers could never replace marbles, Tinkertoys, Lincoln Logs, and pogo sticks.

But never Korea. In so many hours, so many discussions, so many subjects, he never breathed a word about being in the Korean War. After he died of a heart attack in July of 2000, his obituary emotionlessly informed me that he had served on an aircraft carrier during the war. I had mixed emotions at the time. At first, I felt a little miffed, feeling as though I'd been left out of the loop. I felt as though I'd had the wool pulled over my eyes for so many years. I think I know better now, though.

I realize now that he (and everybody else, for that matter) was not concerned with deceiving me - he never would have done that. What he did have was the wisdom to know that I needed a childhood as free from worry and anxiety as possible - the wisdom to know that his grandson, even as a teenager, needed to be able to spend time not with Grandpa the seafaring warrior, but with Grandpa the Grandpa. The Grandpa who sat and listened to swap and trade shows on AM radio every morning. The Grandpa who took an ill-advised turn or two in a Chinese Checkers game just to see me beam with pride in my victory. The Grandpa who took pleasure in spinning Frank Sinatra and Nat King Cole 45's, exposing me to a style of music that I'd never heard before, and that still influences me to this day.

To this minute. Leaving the others to lie in their neglect, I feather through my pillar of dusty vinyl and slide a Sinatra out. As it crackles and hisses before giving way to a rich melody, I'm back on their deep scarlet carpet, bunched and beaten by time, jamming Tinkertoys together and dreaming of saving the world.

Little did I know that, in more ways than one, my Grandpa had already saved it for me.