Bound for the Floor -- Local H

This is the "copacetic" song. Copacetic is an adjective meaning very satisfactory. The origin of the word is unknown, according to Merriam-Webster, which also states that it's first use was in 1919.

My Grandpa was born in 1919. His birthday is coming up in April. He'd be really old if he wash't playing rummy in heaven with Mom and Grandma.

Grandma and Grandpa's house is still there for family gatherings. But I remember when we were young and we used to visit them almost every day after school and all the time during the summer. They had a dog named Lassie, who didn't look exactly like the Lassie from the television show, but she was a collie like that one, only cooler. We all loved Lassie and she kept us safe. Especially from snakes. I remember her fervently shaking her head in the back yard to snap the snake's neck, and then she did it pretty much continuously until Grandpa came along and threw it in the field.

It was pretty fun at Grandma and Grandpa's house. We would watch Woody the Woodpecker and eat a variety of sugary snacks like oatmeal creme pies, circus peanuts, and sugar wafers. I also remember that at 70 or so years old Grandpa could put his feet behind his head, climb trees and roofs, and shoot like a real sharpshooter. One of the most amazing stories Grandpa told us, at the urging of our Mother (since we didn't exactly believe her story), was about him and his brothers shooting apples off the top of one another's heads and cigarettes from one another's mouths. Now not only was that some fucking trust, but that was some really good shooting. It was amazing that none of them ever got injured or killed doing such dare-devil shooting.

I guess that helped when Grandpa was in the war. The boat he was on was one of the first to hit the beaches of Normandy--Utah Beach, so I've heard. When my husband remarked that he didn't know if he could do something like that Grandpa just said, "You never know what you can do until you have to." And that was Grandpa. Sometimes a man of few words, but those words were always some kind of wisdom.

My all-time favorite story about Grandpa was when Mom was young and doing dishes in the kitchen. Grandpa came into the house furious and went to fetch a glass or something from the cabinet right next to Mom. He slammed the cabinet shut and it bounced back and hit him in the face, so he hit the cabinet and it hit him in the face again. We all laughed heartily at Mom's telling of the story and asked her if she had laughed too--to which she said absolutely not while it was happening, but as soon as he was gone again she couldn't help but to laugh.

There are many more great stories about Grandpa--and Grandma, but that's for other posts.