The weekend after the BYU/Utah I made the comment that that weekend had been the worse weekend in my life, I lied. Yes I know I am a horrible person and I am over dramatic about things but hey that is me so get over it.
The worse weekend that I have ever had was not to long ago. If you are a regular Eric Fraley blog reader then you might have read about my grandpa named Pomps, well Alfred Black. I never really finished that story and after I read that blog I rather felt disgusted with myself. I never really told who my grandpa was or what he was all about. I merely said a few words and a few things that made no sense at all. Sadly, my grandpa is no longer alive to hear this one the second time around.
My Grandpa was a man of values, not one that bent the rules his way or that to make them fit in his way, but one that placed an emphasis on how well he did things. When it came time to do something, whether it be bailing and hauling hay, to cleaning beans before they were cooked, he made it a point to do it the right way and the best way possible. He wasn't out to cheat someone out of things, or to make things play in his favor, he was out to produce something worth while that he could say that he did.
Having a Spanish background in my family, a lot of emphasis is placed on food. That is where families get together most often, in the kitchen. I have never been to a family get together where there wasn't food there. I am not saying someone sliding by Wal-Mart an hour before and picking things up, but a well thought out planned meal. Maybe simple dishes but still, things with some thought in them.
With all these people eating all the time, someone has to cook it, and it usually turned out to be my grandma. Beans is almost a given at every meal and we don't do this buy the canned beans, heat them up and call them good. I mean sit down and get uncooked beans, sort them separate them and then cook them. Now, as a family we would sit down and sort beans and clean them out. You have to get the ones that are cut in half, spilt, and the weird let chunks of who knows what that comes with them. While most of us did this really well in my family, my grandpa did them the best.
We would pre sort our beans and then have to give them to him for a final inspection. His pile of unusable beans was rather larger then ours. How? Beats me, I would spend forever on a little pile, just making sure that I got all of the possible unwanted ones out. I would look over them four or five times and then give them to him, and with in a glance he could pick out bad ones that I didn't even see.
In the summer while we would be bailing hay, he would take the time to stop and check the weight of the bales quite often. While you could make a more bales of hay lighter and sale them just as much as a heavier bail, he would make sure that he had good quality bales. Make sure that they were good solid bales that had the best alafafa he could produce. When people would go to buy hay from him, he would sale that best hay that he had and leave himself with the worst of it all. Sure you may say that this is good business. Well, it must have been really good business when you have people driving 3 to 4 hours just to buy hay from him. It didn't matter who you were, if you were paying for it, he would sale you the best he had. If his best wasn't worth the price that he was selling it for originally, he would cut the price.
He was honest in all of his transaction, whether it be with be strangers or with family, he would make sure that what he did was fair. If you worked for him and did a good job, he would pay you accordingly.
although my grandpa did have to much formal education, he had a brilliant mind. He was a problem solver. He would look at something and think about it and read a manual or draw a picture out to try and make things work. My grandma makes some of the greatest tortillas you could ever have and she has been doing it for a while. Thus she can make some pretty perfect circles with these things when she rolls them out. Well, one day, my grandma had to go do some things but she needed to have some tortillas made while she was gone, so she asked my grandpa to do it for her. She left and took care of all of her errands to come back to see that she not only had all of her tortillas made but also, all of them were perfect circles. My grandpa took great pride in this and actually for awhile made fun of her for it. Finally, he told her how he did. He rolled out the dough and then using a larger bowl then normal cut out his tortillas into that perfect circle.
My grandpa had this saying, "That's life." He was a man who realized that you can only do so much and if things went bad, that was life. You need not make a big deal of something that has little significant to the greater realm of things. He was never a member of the church but he was a faithfully believer in God and knew that God had a hand in everything.
My grandpa was a man of forgiveness. He had very little patience's but was quick to forgive. One summer while I was working with him, I broke something on the bailer because I didn't do what he told me to do. To replace the part costed a couple hundred dollars and an entire afternoons worth or work. He got upset at me when he realized what I had done, but by the time we were on our way back from picking up the new part, which was maybe twenty minutes later, he had forgotten all about my mistake and was already on to thinking about how to fix it. HE never held on to grudges, he never went to bed angry with someone, he never let the person go on the rest of their lives thinking that he was upset with them. He had a great ability to forgive people for what they had done.
Well, this could go on forever and ever, but I think I have done a good job of talking about my grandpa. If you have any questions about him let me know and I will be more then willing to answer them for you.
