So my Grandpa passed away today.He was 75. He made it 3/4 of a century. Thats impressive for a guy who had been smoking a pack since he was 13.! I feel kind of bizarre blogging about something so sensitive, but death isn't that big of a deal after all, it's just the first time I've been close to it. As you get older the grandparents start to fade and then the next generation, then the next until you become old and miserable and take your last breath and people will say what a beautiful soul you once were. I've been getting calls from people who knew him and the support people have given to the family is something I'm in awe of. Its neat seeing that strangers became fond of his grumpy ass as much as I had. That crooked smile you couldn't help but flash a bigger one back, damn pappy i wish i could sit and pretend to watch an old western with you and just quiz you on your life.
My grandpa has always had the cough of death from smoking so heavily. My sister and I always talk about how whenever we visited we would play in his ashtray because he would stack the butts in a mini pyramid. If we weren't doing that we were counting his Wolf figurines ( last time when i was around 15 the number of wolf faces was in the mid 80's, then a gain he could have continued collecting). My dad called today to tell me the news and I had been waiting for it, but once you hear the words it does numb you like everyone says. Dad gave me a graphic visual of the last minute and breath that he could've left out just for my sanity. He had just watched a strong man disintegrate into a non coherent bag of bones with blank eyes, he seemed like his head was worn out. Earlier in the week, he was by my grandpas bed thinking he was asleep. Dad was crying and saying how much he loved butch and how he was a great father to him, you know, real sentimental shit. In the morning my grandpa woke up and said, "What were you ON last night boy?! tearing up? ya pussy!". Thats their relationship in a nutshell. When i saw them together it was combat of insults and prods, but then they'd laugh and call each other ass hats and thats just how it was. but then again He cries every time he starts off about his "two beautiful daughters" and how lucky he is and then we lose it as well. He gets the sensitivity from his mothers side.
I went to lay on the roof afterwards to look at the stars and have a good cry. I called Rachel and we shared some of his stories and tears. I guess in the later moments of his life Butch was starting to see the dead. He would fall and then say that a couple had pushed him down and then he'd point and say "see, they're laughing at me!" then started joking about how he'll be haunting us soon enough. My dads very paranoid about all the fuckery grandpa will try and pull on him...
I'm so happy I got to get closest with him last year . Every Thursday he'd come into my work at Charlies around 9;30. I'd be sure to have his black coffee and ashtray out on the small patio corner the second i saw his truck pull up. He always had the steak and eggs medium rare and runny with beans and flour tortillas. Martine saw "papa" and threw his steak on the grill.
I don't know if he really had an addiction to coffee or if he drank so much so it gave me an excuse to talk to him for a few minutes. He'd tell me stories of when he was a kid being born in PB. He said he used to make fake coins and use them to get into the movies until an article was written up on the front page about the counterfeits. Butch also made moonshine in his bathtub and was quite the basketball star.When he went to La Jolla high they had a blind teacher (explain this to me.) that they used to replace the chalk with cigarettes. They'd spend everyday at the beach and looked Brazilian. They had tourist days where they'd wear all their hawaiian shirts and act like goons all day. One time he even fought of a house intrusion and i think he got a little stabbed? The worst part is i can't even ask him anymore. There are so many things I'm curious about.
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Another regular at Charlies named Rodna was saying shed lived on missouri st her whole life. I asked her if shed ever known a "Butch Rhoades". She immediately put her hands up and started into a flashback of her at a Middle school dance, her in 6th and him a few older. She said how he made her swoon, and when she saw his back she said it was one of the first times she could remember "crushing". She had jumped right into the story i didn't have time to let it slip that he was my grandpa. She asked where he was now and that she had heard he had died. I said "no he's actually sitting on the other side of this glass window smoking" 6 inches away from her face. He made remember what a small town. He wasn't just a regular somewhere, he was a regular everywhere, a beer at every corner and a grunt to every bartender. His old watering hole was the silver Fox, where he met his 4th wife, Tami, a hotrod funny as hell waitress in a fireman's hat on an electric scooter. She killed herself with a shot gun in a shed about 4 years ago with an empty whiskey bottle and no note. The third wife was Karen, don't know much about her, the second, Diane, who died from cancer(or Karma) since she was the sister of the first, Carole, my grandma, the gentle high school sweetheart who had two kids Bret and Teresa. Grandpas favorite story he used to tell us was when he had recently married diane and they were working on the ranch shoveling horse shit. Teresa came up behind my dad and judo chopped him as hard as possible in-between his shoulder blades. Without a second thought dad turned and stabbed teresa's foot in the ground with his pitchfork. She still has the scars and they laugh about it every time were together. That story needed to be written down somewhere.
Death is the threat that pushes me to feel the need to accomplish. I'm BY NO MEANS a productive or goal oriented individual, but i swear i will not give up on seeing the most i can see and be the most ME i can be before my clock stops ticking. Most of all the means being happy, and enjoying myself in my next big move. Butch was never trying to impress anyone, he was just living. I appreciate his self-sufficiency, i just wish he knew how much we all loved him and would've taken a little help when he needed it. Everyone was willing. His pride was strong, I don't think anyone would use the word "weak" in the same sentence as his name. The roughest, toughest california cowboy. I'm really missing you.
