Granddaddy

When I was small, I loved my Granddaddy very much. He would always let me help him feed the goats, work on the barn, and various other things he told me little kids like me would love to do.

He'll be 90 in October. The rest of my family constantly talk about how he'll probably outlive all of us. I wouldn't doubt it.

My Grandfather is sick. He's not as sick as most people who are still alive at his age. He just has the usual kidney problems, diabetes, whatever. My mother and aunt take turns driving him to the Veterans hospital once a week for appointments. He receives a $17 travel allowance for each trip, which he keeps, since his goat selling business isn't exactly booming.

Once, at an appointment for his cataracts, my grandfather was complaining about the price of gas, and that he barely had enough to make it to the doctor. A nice little old lady, probably older than him, gave him five dollars, which he quickly put in his pocket. As he walked away from the lady who was smiling about what a good deed she had just done, my grandfather laughed and joked about how someone crazy old bird just gave him five bucks for nothing.

In reality, my grandfather has a lot of money. He hides it in various places, including a bank account that my mother just discovered containing over $40,000.

So, basically, my grandfather is just a greedy old bastard who looked at me not as a young, curious boy, but as a source of free and complacent child labor.