Missing my Grandfather

I never met Lloyd H. Mears, my maternal grandfather. Due to a situation that requires a long story which I will save for another time, we had no pictures of him, or my grandmother and mother when they were young. I did find a daguerrotype which may be Lloyd as a youth, with his father. I have sought my grandfather since I was thirteen, writing to old relatives on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, where he and my grandmother grew up, for information or a photo. There existed a picture of him at one time, but, tantalizingly, it has vanished like the wind.

Here is the sum total of my knowledge of Lloyd: Like his dad, John Henry, he worked as a conductor for the railroad for a time. He eloped with my grandmother, Elsie Pearl, running away to New York. My cousin Earl, grandson of Lloyd’s sister, said he was a natty dresser, loved horses, the drink and had a weakness for gambling. My mom, an only child like I am, adored him. He got work as a butcher, working for wealthy folk who took him on yachts. He and my mom would eat kippers for breakfast on Sundays. My grandmother said “He was very clean, never coming home from the butcher shop with any blood on his clothes.”

My father said, “He looked like a little Irishman.” And Lloyd, like my mother, loved to laugh. Apparently, he was a practical joker, since I have this story from my mother about him:

Lloyd was waiting for a streetcar in NYC when he thought he recognized a buddy just ahead of him. So, by way of a joke, he gave him a good kick in the butt. Obviously astounded, the man turned, to see Lloyd grinning from ear to ear. As soon as my grandfather realized that the man was a stranger, not his friend, the shock of what he had just done drove any explanation straight out of him, replacing what should have been an apology with a fit of hysterical laughter.   The enraged man, not understanding why a stranger would kick him and then laugh about it, punched him in the nose. 

This story loomed large in my imagination when I was growing up. I tucked it away in my memory with the other scraps of things I knew about my grandfather, bringing it out whenever I was bored or lonely like a much-read love letter. I always wondered if he would have liked me. I was a sad, disoriented teenager who didn’t laugh often. I figured I had nothing in common with Lloyd; perhaps he didn’t want me to find him…

When I attended college, I didn’t make many friends but I did have a boyfriend during my junior year, Bill, who was a senior. I knew his buddies well enough to be teased by them. One fellow, Jack, had flaming red hair. In our small college he really stuck out. He would sneak up behind me and tickle me to make me scream. I knew I needed to retaliate.

Then, one day, I saw his red hair in a crowd at the student union. Working my way through people buying coffee and hamburgers, I snuck behind him and grabbed him under his arms. “AARRRGGGHHH!,” I roared. People stared as Jack turned to see who had attacked him. But the person staring at me in shock was a stranger. We both just stood there for several minutes until I clapped my hand over my mouth, backing into the crowd and disappeared.

Mortified and wondering how there could be another red-head whom I had never seen before, I told only my roommate. Jane watched me with a tolerant amused smile as I tried to tell what had happened in-between bouts of hysterical laughter. Naturally, I thought of my grandfather. I was grateful that this “Jack impersonater” hadn’t punched me in the nose.

By spring, I had forgotten the incident. I hadn’t seen my victim. That spring was rainy and cold. Walking from class to class across campus in the driving rain was miserable. We got used to wearing our raincoats everywhere and carrying umbrellas. Mine was shaped like a Hershey Kiss  with a black pointy tip that stuck out of the top. I was on a long straight sidewalk which passed Oller Hall and its big grassy lawn. The rain had stopped driving and had become a silvery mist. As I looked out from under it, I saw in the distance, a person coming towards me, sans umbrella, in a raincoat. Even though he wore a hood, I could spot that red hair. This time, I KNEW it was Jack! My boyfriend told him about my assaulting a stranger, which provided more fodder for teasing me.

I lowered my umbrella, low enough to not be seen, but so that I could see his feet coming towards me. When Jack saw that we were on the same path and would collide, his feet moved to the other side of the sidewalk. I did the same. We both repeated this dance as we got closer until the feet stopped directly in front of me, at which point, I tipped the umbrella to his navel height and gave him a good poke with the protruding tip. Then, I raided the umbrella slowly, with the greatest delight; a huge smile across my face.

I imagine, although I am pretty old, that one day, someone will reveal that they’ve found a picture of Lloyd. Maybe I even resemble him. After all, I adore horses, like a good drink and know that gambling is too dangerous for me to get involved in. But most of all, whenever I recall that rainy day in college, when for the SECOND TIME I attacked a perfectly innocent stranger and all I could do was burst into hysterical laughter as he hurried away, I know I am the granddaughter of the mysterious LLoyd H. Mears.