I was going to post this in “Favorite Grandparent Moments.” But then I realized that there were too many moments of his to narrow it down, and I didn’t want to hijack the thread. I’m not so sure a lot of these are heartwarming moments, but I feel the need to share them with you.
So, here we go with a little story about the man they call Abe.
Elmer lives in Indiana, with the rest of my immediate family. He is a character to say the least. My Grandfather on my fathers side, he is in his mid 70’s now. And I would like to share with you what I feel some of the highlights of his strange life are.
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He has never had a job, but has inexplicably become increadibly wealthy doing odd jobs and flea markets. I have witnessed him selling things such as parts of a broken ceiling fan or a beach towel that had a dollar bill print on it to people for phenomenal amounts of money. When we were kids, he would pull out wads of hundred dollar bills when we asked for candy or soda money, and then after counting several thousand dollars out, would put it back in his pocket and say he didn’t have enough. He also digs through trash bins to get a lot of his food. He is an excellent cook, but nowadays I’m afraid to eat any of his cuisine.
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Speaking of food, the man has some bizarre dining habits. I’ve seen him cook a de-furred squirrel whole in a frying pan and then sit down and eat the meat off of it. He has also picked up a dead carp off of the river bank and eaten several bites just for shock value. And he’s famous in the neighborhood for making pickled corn in large plastic trash cans, which we devoured like it was a delicacy when we were children.
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He is one of the best banjo players I’ve ever seen in my life. He’s had several bands, one he called “The Green Men” because they all grew afros and died them green. Strange for a country western ensamble.
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He dyes his moustache with shoe polish, and has long stringy hair in a pony tail. His fashion usually consists of a long sleeve T-shirt, cut off jean shorts with sweats underneath, an old brown belt and a pair of spaceman style Nike Basketball shoes.
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He has preached a funeral, tried to jump a river on a motorcycle (he failed, breaking his collarbone) and has caught a 40 some lb catfish.
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He has had several interesting hobbies, including sculpting driftwood into creatures, claiming “they tell him what they want to be” (I’ve seen people offer him over $500 for one of them) and likes to dig for historical bottles. On one of these expeditions, he brought back a clay sculpture of a Mayan idol that turned out to be a flute. After claiming for several months that he had made the arcaeological find of the century, we found out he had bought it from a yard sale, and that it had been a school art project.
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One time he invented his own “Miracle Cleaner” the he put in old bottles he had found and sold to people. It worked wonderfully, and people were buying it, until one of his kids found over 100 empty bottles of Scotts Liquid Gold in a shed in the back yard.
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He’s a fabulous story teller, and the things that have happened to him are twice as funny when he’s telling them, even though you were there when it happened. For instance, on a camping trip once with several people, there was a large gentleman named Bill. Maybe bill had had too much to drink, but whatever the case, he became extremely frightened when he heard a noise in the woods. When he asked what it was, grandfather replied it was a badger. Apparently, Bill had never heard of a badger, and inquired what it was. Grandfather replied “It’s a big mean furry critter with 8 tails and 5 assholes, and it’s going to eat your toes off in the middle of the night.” Keep in mind that Bill was in his 30’s. Bill become so frightened that he replied “Ohhhhh, I don’t want no badger eating my toes off, Abe! Can I sleep on top of you so it can’t get me?” We were dying laughing, and of course, Abe was annoyed so he replied “Hell no you can’t sleep on top of me, what’s wrong with you?” Through the night, we would throw rocks in the woods, and then tell Bill the badger was coming to eat his toes. And after everytime bill would whine and ask Abe if he could sleep on top of him.
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He also used to take the grandchildren into the woods by a river fishing, and then would run away when he heard a noise, telling us it was the Wampus Cat, another multi tailed, milti anused creature that also had several heads and lived in sewage.
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He’s claimed to have known the date of the appocolypse on several different occasions, often starting his own church in his back yard with 5 or less attendees where he would play the banjo and sing hymns.
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He’s owned several different vehicles, including a white stretch limo that he would drive to the grocery store, and a volkswagon that he bolted steer horns to the hood of, ala J.R. Ewing. I’ve seen him buy cars, spray paint the bottom black, because he thought it looked good, then never drive them and sell them off.
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One of his stranger acts was when he shaved of half of his moustache, put some duct tape around his arms and walked around proclaiming himself to be Zoltar, the space man.
So, that’s some of the things about Abe. Names have been changed, but they are all true. If people enjoy the post and I think of other things, I’ll add them