Tribute to Grandpa

     Hello and welcome. I stand here before you today to celebrate Grandpa and the family he helped create. My name is Clinton, and I’m Eileen’s son. I’m the first but not the oldest grandkid. I felt like I needed to say something for Grandpa that might bring you some cheer or tears of joy in this trying time.

     I want to apologize up front for two things. I’m doing public speaking for the first time in my life, so please bear with me. The second is that I pick up on other peoples’ talk, and sometimes seem to start talking how other people talk. Perfect example is when Uncle Phil (Greene) comes to town; by the time he leaves to go home you would swear I was born and raised in Kentucky!  Nothing wrong with that, right? Problem is, I’ve worked with two people for a very long time that stutter, so like I say, bear with me.

     I got a text message from my friend the day after Grandpa passed. He wrote, “Sorry to hear about your grandpa passing; sounds like he had a good life.” It was in that moment when it really hit home for me. Instantly, memories started coming to me about all the times we had together. That night I filled two pages with a list of all the things that came to me. I surprised myself how much I wrote. It became pretty clear that Grandpa was a big part of my young life as well as all the kids. When I refer to kids it means the 14 siblings and maybe a few grandkids of my generation. 

     I would like to share with you the list, some of which are short and some which come with a story. There is no particular order, and if anybody is missed, it is not on purpose. I hope they bring back memories for some, and for all the younger grandkids, a taste of what the Thompson family was all about pre-social media.

     One of my first memories of Grandpa was his 55^th birthday. I remember telling him, “Hey Grandpa, you’re as old as the speed limit!” Anne and Yvonne were rubbing balloons in their hair to stick them to the ceiling, creating the number 55. Their hair was literally sticking straight up as they put about 30 balloons up to make the number, and the balloons would occasionally fall only to have them re-static them to stick to the ceiling again. 

     Speaking of birthdays, who could forget about my mother’s birthday cakes? She made everybody a cake. Some of these cakes were two stories high and fed everybody that showed up. I remember the countless hours that she would spend making them only to put them into my lap and hope they would make the safe voyage down to Grandpa’s house. Yes, yes, we did have a few that flipped, tipped, or skidded off the baking sheet! She was amazing and could always get it back to presentable for the big bash!

     I spent a lot of time at Grandpa’s and I’m not going to stand here and tell you he was always happy to see me when I came down, because I don’t think he knew I was there half the time! There were always extra people around, and looking back at it now, I understand how much he probably had on his mind. Between work and kids, he must have had his hands full. He had his routine after work. When he got home, he attempted to feed everybody and get into a chair with a can of Coors by the time the news came on. When the nightly news hit the tv, you better be quiet or he would get right after you, and that was not something you wanted to participate in. Then there was the tv antennae atop a pole in the side yard. If the wind blew just right, you would hear that distinct name called, “Michael!” Then a “Fix that antennae!” Mike would run around the house and wiggle that old antennae until you heard a “Yep, you got it!”

     This leads me to my next story. The soccer goal. Fred and Ron, with help from others, built a soccer goal from old telephone poles. It was an awesome goal, full-sized and indestructible. The problem was it was built in front of the antennae, so when they overshot the goal, it wreaked havoc on the television screen. If they only slightly overshot the goal, it would land in the poison sumac forest. All the Thompson kids that I’m aware of were allergic to sumac. Ask Kathleen. One time she got into it and I thought her eyes would be swollen together forever. Apparently, me being half Thompson and half Crooker, I got a resistance to anything poison sumac or poison ivy related, so it was my job to fetch everything from the sumac forest. The soccer goal was a lot of fun. My fondest memory was when Fred told me, “Hey, Clinty, get in the goal buddy”. Have any of you experienced being a goalie against somebody three times your size? Imagine a soccer ball that’s coming at you so fast, you completely freeze. It’s coming at you fast, then the speed of sound! Then it’s “lights out for Clinty” because it literally drove me right through the net. Ten people come to the rescue. “Are you alright?” And you’re not sure if you still have a face or not, because you can’t feel one.

     One thing you could always count on seeing at Grandpa’s, was Rex. Rex was a border collie that I thought was a living legend. Everybody had Rex stories. It took me quite a while to realize there was more than one dog. Does anybody know how many Rex dogs there were? He was always biting your bike tire or chasing heifers that had gotten out of the barn. He was always a good dog and he knew who his master was. If Grandpa used that tone of voice and yelled, “Rex!”, he would do exactly as he was told. 

     Who remembers Thanksgiving at Winnie’s? Everybody packed into their station wagons and headed to Elmira. Winnie lived in a smaller-type house, and when 25 people showed up, it was a full house. There were limited activities at Winnie’s. You had Checkers or Battleship, both two-player games. If the weather was good, it was football in the street or hide-n-seek. I learned a valuable lesson playing hide-n-seek in Elmira; never look back while running alongside a parked car! I collided with a driver’s-side mirror. It was one of those times when your lower half keeps moving forward, but your upper half doesn’t! Needless to say, it didn’t hurt the mirror. I was then sidelined to the living room couch, which was always packed with uncles trying to get a glimpse of the legendary Detroit Lions running back, Barry Sanders, on the tv, schooling the Cowboys to another touchdown! Seeing that on a 24” screen was awesome back then.

     It was always a quick turn-around after Thanksgiving to Christmas, and Christmas at Grandpa’s was like no other! Every year we climbed the hill to get a Christmas tree. I bet there was 20 years-worth of Christmas trees there. Grandkids, you know, back then everybody tried to buy presents for everybody. It wasn’t my fault that you all weren’t around yet! There were presents piled 5-6 feet high! You could barely see the tree. It wasn’t hardly worth decorating. It was buried!  Not to be negative, but that all kind of ended when some of the aunts decided to do the unthinkable…drawing names for Christmas presents. They say that presents aren’t what Christmas is all about, but anyway, I digress. The living room was small in the old white house, and was lit with one light bulb, but, boy, did I put on a show there every year. I could shred wrapping paper better than anybody my age! There is an old story about one of those Christmases which I don’t remember but have been told, I opened an inflatable duck. It was weighted at the bottom with sand or something, and was supposed to be a punching bag that always stayed upright. Story goes that I got carried away and as I was reigning haymakers on this duck, I yelled out something that rhymes with duck. They say the room went silent, then erupted with laughter, mortifying my mother, who whisked me away to the car and drove me home.

     One thing that Grandpa enjoyed was golf. Stephen was always taking people to play. Grandpa was not great at the sport, but he knew how to win. He could get under your skin after the first hole. I witnessed him do this with Ronnie over at the Pinnacle. Grandpa couldn’t hit far, but usually stayed close to the fairway. Ron was more of a power hitter, with no accuracy. By the third or fourth hole, Grandpa was beating Ron up verbally and on the course. Ron would get ready to swing, and Grandpa would say something hilarious, and Ron would slice or shank the ball. He did the same thing to me once in Mansfield. He said, “You’re gonna hit that tree”, that was like ten yards in front of my ball. Sure enough, I did, and he slapped his knee and just laughed and laughed. I followed that up with another swing that sent the ball about knee-high in a curving direction where it collided with an I-beam on a pedestrian bridge, and sounded like a church bell ringing. I don’t think I ever beat him in the sport despite our almost fifty-year age gap!

     Other memories with Grandpa are the one-and-only Big Pond by David’s house. It was built around the time I was born, and thanks to Grandpa, it created a lot of memories. Somebody towed in a camper, and he would make hotdogs and sleep in the camper with us usually once every summer. The early pond days included a floating dock and a lot of swimming. It would be priceless to see a picture of all the guys in swim trunks. I’m assuming cut-off blue jean trunks were choice swimwear then. The pond was where Grandpa and David taught you how to fish and how to paddle a canoe. I remember somebody snagged Colleen’s dog in the butt one summer. That dog ran all the way back to the house dragging the pole! The most memorable moment for me was hearing Grandpa let out an eerie yelp. I turned around only to see Anne Marie had hooked Grandpa in the neck. She hooked him good below his ear, under his jawbone. I don’t remember anything after that moment so I’m not sure if we just ran away in fear of the belt, or what really happened.

     Back at Grandpa’s house there were two things that took place in the house that I never thought were abnormal as a kid, because it just happened.  Number One- Yvonne was a sniper. You see, the kitchen was where all the food was, so naturally(?), chipmunks got in. I recall Yvonne shooting the .22 in the kitchen! If I remember correctly, between the sink and the exit door of the kitchen, there was a chunk of countertop that got blown off with the .22, although this was attributed to Jack.   Number Two- the bathroom was like a sniper’s bunker. I watched Jack many times sit backwards on the toilet seat, elbows on top of the toilet tank, .22 laid on the windowsill, staring down the barrel at a woodchuck on the opposite creek bank. For a woodchuck that lived under the surveillance of that bathroom window, to live through the summer was unheard of. As years went by, they became aware of the sound of the bathroom door closing; they could tell when the barrel was laid on the sill. It’s not an exaggeration to say there were over 50 empty shells on that bathroom floor and windowsill. 

     Speaking of guns, remember when Ron brought home that machine gun? There was Grandpa, Mike, and me, and maybe some others. We witnessed Grandpa pointing out a woodchuck on the hill in front of David’s house. He told Ron, “Bet you can’t hit him”. Ron smirked as if to say there was no woodchuck that the gun couldn’t kill. We watched him shoot three rounds through the scope. The next umpteen rounds exited the gun while he held it at his hip. It was dry that summer and you could see the shells hitting the topsoil, lifting the dirt with every hit. The amount of lead that woodchuck experienced that day must have been similar to D-Day when troops landed at the beaches of Normandy. And like the Allies, the woodchuck won that day! It’s the only time in my life I’ve heard over 20 rounds fired that quick. Grandpa just chuckled at Ron and walked away. 

     At this time, I would like to share some other stories that may or may not need somebody in the audience to finish the story. If there is one thing Thompsons are good at, it’s telling stories, right? Of all 14 of you guys, you are all good at it. So, as I read them off, don’t be shy. Throw up a hand and help me out.

• Jumping off the porch roof at the white house into a snowbank
• Grandpa’s horse Katie, and the untamable mustang, Chief
• Jack and I wrecking his Enduro
• Ron’s ’97 Mustang GT
• Anne and midgets
• Kathleen graduating boot camp in Georgia
• Me crashing my mom’s car into the firewood pile
• The hood on Cynthia’s car that Grandpa fixed with door hinges
• Sunday evening car rides with 7 kids
• Shooting fireworks at somebody walking home from David’s house
• Jane’s wedding- everybody left Addison
• Grandpa running the town grader
• The freak bike accident on Tobin Rd
• Steve picking up Yvonne for Prom
• Country Cream
• Anne doing cartwheels with a snake
• The time Grandpa challenged me to a footrace
• Ron and Fred crab-apple-ing the party on Space Rd
• Fred and the overhead door
• David and the armpit hair remover

     I am proud to say Stephen Thompson was my Grandpa. He was never a rich man, but was rich with family. To have 15 kids, be married 59 years, there’s probably not much he didn’t see or have to overcome. I’ll never forget at my wedding he said, “Clinton, you should have a dozen kids.” He followed up by saying he wished somebody would have more than him. He said the first six are hard, after that, the older ones take care of the younger ones. My wife and I are not going to get to 15, so I’ll leave it up to the rest of the grandkids. Fill Grandpa’s wishes. I’m going to leave you on this last note. I sometimes brag this family up. What other dad can say he has 14 happily married and still-married children? As I scroll through all 14 couples you seem content, comfortable. As a father, what more can we hope for besides having all of our children be happy? So maybe for a moment, take your eyes off me attempting to talk, and thank your spouse for putting up with you!