Thatcher Robinson's Blog
February 15, 2015
September 9, 2013
Grandpa
I copied this latest blog from my website @ thatcherrobinson.com
I’ve taken down some of the blogs I’ve written.
When I read them, I found them self-serving and boring, so I trashed them. Instead, I’d like to write about my grandfather, a man who didn’t fit - not into a suit, a job, or society. He lived rough, which in those times meant he lived outside the law.
Thomas Morris, my grandfather, turned out to be something of a disappointment to his parents. At the age of ten, the authorities in Utah pronounced him "an incorrigible." At the time, reform schools didn’t exist, so he was sent to the Paiute Indian Reservation, a place so remote and desolate those in authority figured he could do no harm. And if he did, the Paiutes would just kill him and that would be the end of it.
To everyone’s surprise, Thomas thrived on the reservation. The Indians taught him how to ride and rope. They taught him how to survive in a land so barren and harsh rattlesnakes had difficulty sustaining life. Hardship turned the troubled youth into a steely-eyed, raw-boned man, who more resembled an Indian than he did his Welsh forebears. He rode the free range as a mustanger and liked to explain in graphic detail how he would ride a horse until it dropped then dig a hole and build a fire under it. If the horse didn’t get up, Grandpa ate it.
For some reason, my grandfather felt it was important for me to know how to survive in a harsh world. I have to admit, the lessons he taught still remain vivid in my memory.
His favorite horse, one he’d trained to come when he whistled, hated my grandfather and kept running away. He loved that stallion, a paint with white and dark markings. The third time he tracked the horse down, the stallion managed to avoid capture for three weeks. My grandfather crossed southern Utah into New Mexico to find that horse. When he finally caught up with the unfaithful steed, he put a bullet in its brain.
If you haven’t guessed by now, my grandfather was a self-proclaimed son-of-a-bitch. He didn’t particularly like anybody, but he liked me. By the time I was born, he’d already lived nearly sixty years and had mellowed, but not much. Men still feared him. Animals generally hated him. He didn’t care. He kept to himself, lived by his own rules and didn’t give a shit what anybody thought. Even as a small child, I liked him for that.
In mid-life, Thomas married a spinster and together they adopted my mother shortly after she was born. He and my grandmother, Rose, eked out a living on their small truck farm. They owned a cow, chickens and a couple of dozen sheep. They sold milk and eggs, sheared the sheep each spring and sold the wool. A quarter acre garden and fruit trees kept my grandmother bottling and canning through the summer and early fall. My grandfather buried apples under the dirt floor of the tool shed, layering the fruit with hay, so that when the ground froze they would have fresh apples through the winter. He showed me how to cut potatoes and cover them with lime for spring planting. The man couldn’t read or write; but if you set him out in the middle of nowhere naked, he’d survive.
His self-sufficiency served as a lesson for me. He didn’t need much to be happy. Freedom to do as he pleased meant more to him than money, or what money could buy. He liked to spend his afternoons playing poker with his grandson. When I’d catch him cheating, he’d storm off angrily.
If I’d been anyone else, he’d have thrown a fist. Of course, by that time no one else in town would play cards with him and he couldn’t very well hit a six-year-old, though he didn’t forego cheating one. I’d like to think the cheating was one of his life lessons, but from his reputation in town, he’d taught the same life-lesson to everyone he’d ever played cards with; that is, until they’d banned him from the card rooms and saloons for life, not so much for the cheating but for the fighting. His reputation as a drinker, a brawler and a dangerous man followed him into his later years.
Grandpa’s story, I’m sad to say, doesn’t end well. Symptoms of dementia became apparent in his late-sixties. Having always been a violent man, he and his illness proved more than anyone could handle. During his bouts of dementia, he’d relive barroom brawls and lash out with a fist or a boot. By the time he’d reached seventy, he’d kicked the shit out of more rest home orderlies and nurses than any man on the planet. Eventually, they strapped him in a chair and bound him hand and foot like a condemned man. He died that way, sitting in his own filth, a sad end to a proud man. By then, my grandmother had passed. My mother hated him. I might have been the only person in the world to feel sorry the old son-of-a-bitch was gone. Most who knew him, I suspect, let out a long sigh of relief.
So what’s the point of this story? Thomas Morris wasn’t charming, educated or even likeable, but he was interesting. He lived a hard life and died an ugly death, and that six-year-old boy loved him, even if he was a son-of-a-bitch.
I’ve taken down some of the blogs I’ve written.
When I read them, I found them self-serving and boring, so I trashed them. Instead, I’d like to write about my grandfather, a man who didn’t fit - not into a suit, a job, or society. He lived rough, which in those times meant he lived outside the law.
Thomas Morris, my grandfather, turned out to be something of a disappointment to his parents. At the age of ten, the authorities in Utah pronounced him "an incorrigible." At the time, reform schools didn’t exist, so he was sent to the Paiute Indian Reservation, a place so remote and desolate those in authority figured he could do no harm. And if he did, the Paiutes would just kill him and that would be the end of it.
To everyone’s surprise, Thomas thrived on the reservation. The Indians taught him how to ride and rope. They taught him how to survive in a land so barren and harsh rattlesnakes had difficulty sustaining life. Hardship turned the troubled youth into a steely-eyed, raw-boned man, who more resembled an Indian than he did his Welsh forebears. He rode the free range as a mustanger and liked to explain in graphic detail how he would ride a horse until it dropped then dig a hole and build a fire under it. If the horse didn’t get up, Grandpa ate it.
For some reason, my grandfather felt it was important for me to know how to survive in a harsh world. I have to admit, the lessons he taught still remain vivid in my memory.
His favorite horse, one he’d trained to come when he whistled, hated my grandfather and kept running away. He loved that stallion, a paint with white and dark markings. The third time he tracked the horse down, the stallion managed to avoid capture for three weeks. My grandfather crossed southern Utah into New Mexico to find that horse. When he finally caught up with the unfaithful steed, he put a bullet in its brain.
If you haven’t guessed by now, my grandfather was a self-proclaimed son-of-a-bitch. He didn’t particularly like anybody, but he liked me. By the time I was born, he’d already lived nearly sixty years and had mellowed, but not much. Men still feared him. Animals generally hated him. He didn’t care. He kept to himself, lived by his own rules and didn’t give a shit what anybody thought. Even as a small child, I liked him for that.
In mid-life, Thomas married a spinster and together they adopted my mother shortly after she was born. He and my grandmother, Rose, eked out a living on their small truck farm. They owned a cow, chickens and a couple of dozen sheep. They sold milk and eggs, sheared the sheep each spring and sold the wool. A quarter acre garden and fruit trees kept my grandmother bottling and canning through the summer and early fall. My grandfather buried apples under the dirt floor of the tool shed, layering the fruit with hay, so that when the ground froze they would have fresh apples through the winter. He showed me how to cut potatoes and cover them with lime for spring planting. The man couldn’t read or write; but if you set him out in the middle of nowhere naked, he’d survive.
His self-sufficiency served as a lesson for me. He didn’t need much to be happy. Freedom to do as he pleased meant more to him than money, or what money could buy. He liked to spend his afternoons playing poker with his grandson. When I’d catch him cheating, he’d storm off angrily.
If I’d been anyone else, he’d have thrown a fist. Of course, by that time no one else in town would play cards with him and he couldn’t very well hit a six-year-old, though he didn’t forego cheating one. I’d like to think the cheating was one of his life lessons, but from his reputation in town, he’d taught the same life-lesson to everyone he’d ever played cards with; that is, until they’d banned him from the card rooms and saloons for life, not so much for the cheating but for the fighting. His reputation as a drinker, a brawler and a dangerous man followed him into his later years.
Grandpa’s story, I’m sad to say, doesn’t end well. Symptoms of dementia became apparent in his late-sixties. Having always been a violent man, he and his illness proved more than anyone could handle. During his bouts of dementia, he’d relive barroom brawls and lash out with a fist or a boot. By the time he’d reached seventy, he’d kicked the shit out of more rest home orderlies and nurses than any man on the planet. Eventually, they strapped him in a chair and bound him hand and foot like a condemned man. He died that way, sitting in his own filth, a sad end to a proud man. By then, my grandmother had passed. My mother hated him. I might have been the only person in the world to feel sorry the old son-of-a-bitch was gone. Most who knew him, I suspect, let out a long sigh of relief.
So what’s the point of this story? Thomas Morris wasn’t charming, educated or even likeable, but he was interesting. He lived a hard life and died an ugly death, and that six-year-old boy loved him, even if he was a son-of-a-bitch.
July 9, 2013
White Ginger Theme Song
In the spirit of innovative marketing, I’ve purloined written a theme song for White Ginger. Now all we need to do is figure out what to do with it.
To the theme for “Shaft’
Who's the Asian private dick?
A paladin for all the chicks!
(White Ginger!)
You're damn right.
Who’s the girl to front the man?
A hero who don’t give a damn!
(White Ginger!)
Sraight up, brother!
Who's the girl that won't cop out?
When there's danger all about,
(White Ginger!)
Right on
You see this babe, Bai Jiang, is a bad mother--
(Shut your mouth)
But I'm talkin' about White Ginger
(Then we can dig it)
She's a complicated woman
And no one understands her but her man
(White Ginger!)
To the theme for “Shaft’
Who's the Asian private dick?
A paladin for all the chicks!
(White Ginger!)
You're damn right.
Who’s the girl to front the man?
A hero who don’t give a damn!
(White Ginger!)
Sraight up, brother!
Who's the girl that won't cop out?
When there's danger all about,
(White Ginger!)
Right on
You see this babe, Bai Jiang, is a bad mother--
(Shut your mouth)
But I'm talkin' about White Ginger
(Then we can dig it)
She's a complicated woman
And no one understands her but her man
(White Ginger!)
