Gramps
"He made a difference."
Gramps, my mother's father --
Dave Luke -- my grandfather,
a tall unlettered white (decidedly white)
Louisiana man -- was born August 1887.
He lived 87 years. He grew under
the stern paternal gaze of his father,
Duncan (Grandpa Dunc.) Early in life
he had to get used to the hard work
that that time required. He labored in fields,
in marshes, swamps, bayous and, accompanying
his father, on cattle drive trails from South Louisiana
to Galveston. There is, somewhere, a letter
(which he could never read) offering
them yet another cattle drive.
But that is a stray detail here.
I remember how he sat, every day, in the late 1950's
in his wooden rocker next to his kitchen window.
He never tired of looking out while it still existed
at an oil well and at its nearby burn pit and flare
in the adjoining expansive pasture with
cattle that he liked to count every few days.
Beginning in 1936 his fortunes changed
from being simply a competent farmer.
By 1944 he had 8 producing oil wells.
More came later. And went.
But he was a calm man who enjoyed
and valued his home. He had few pretensions.
He watched from his window the noisy passing
of oil field trucks on the road (later Hwy 317) that
ran through his property to its end at Burns Point.
The vehicles sped by, day long, swooshing
the air somehow mixed with the earthy
rot of the swamp and long-fallen logs and fauna.
He sat in but, curiously, did not rock his chair.
He sipped from his usual bottle of Jax beer,
perhaps to dull unvoiced aches and painful
memories of his wife taken by diabetes in 1954
and of children gone long (grown, growing old.)
He thought and spoke, not bitterly, of recalled
days in the fields and of winter trapping
in the marshes before the monied days.
And though life had been hard he did not
complain. A rural party-line telephone
hung on the wall next to his right shoulder.
He rarely answered its occasional rings --
that was passed on to the changing rotation
of teenaged grandsons or great-grandsons
assigned or allowed to live with and to
look after him (or to the cook who walked
the mile to his house every day.) He didn't drive
and, mostly, he needed to be not quite so alone.
The young companions had their own
needs and reasons to be there.
He was not a talkative man.
He spoke sparingly with strong clearly drawn
instructions and authority. Still, a rare random
silent tear sometimes could be spied escaping
from his rather rheumy eyes as he fumbled
for a Lucky Strike or spat into the porcelain
coated white metal spitoon on the floor
next to his rocker. After his wife died
(66 years old) he lasted 21 more years.
Somehow, now, closer to him in age,
I feel better able to understand more.
He was always spoken of and referred to
with respect and perhaps a little fear
as Gramps -- or, by non-family, simply as
Mr. Dave. He had his share of failings.
He was not always kind.
Surprisingly, my own time with him
(a bit less than 3 years) when I needed
to be there much more than he needed
me to be there -- over 62 years ago --
was special. He was human.
I did not visit, later, as I should have.
I often think of him and of what I owe him.
I admit I miss him.
Copyright © Leo Larry Amadore | Year Posted 2023
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