Today I raise my drink to Garbanzo’s Grandpa.  A St Patrick’s Day cannot pass without me thinking about this old guy.  He introduced Garbanzo and me to the age old tradition of eating corned beef and cabbage and drinking beer on St Patrick’s Day.

After Garbanzo’s grandma died, everyone was pressuring Grandpa to sell everything and move into a retirement home.  Being the good grandkids we were, we offered him another solution.  Garbanzo was looking to go back to school, so we offered to live with him while he traveled and figured out what he wanted to do.  This would take the pressure off of him to make a decision and give us a chance to have reduced cost housing.

Grandpa loved to cook.  I mean, he LOVED to cook.  I don’t think I could count on one hand the number of times Garbanzo and I cooked while living there for about 18 months.  Grandpa was also  a very laid back guy.  He had his routines, but generally he loved to tell stories and stories we did hear.

We knew when Grandpa was trying to get back into the dating scene, but never quite heard the true story about how he got hooked up with a dating service.  At 78, he was getting dressed up and going out on dates.  We knew things were getting serious with one when the herbal supplement El Toro suddenly appeared with other vitamins at the table in the breakfast nook.  I don’t know if I am proud, happy, or a little weirded out by knowing the Grandpa’s sex life was alive and well.  But, alive and well it was.  

He married his sweetheart about a year after we moved out.  She is a wonderful woman who kept him in line through the remainder of his life.  He died three years ago, but he will always live on with us.  I mean, how many grandkids have this kind of knowledge of their grandparents.

So, I must raise my glass of Guinness to Grandpa!  May he be eating corned beef and cabbage, drinking a good stout, and telling lies wherever he may be!