Our family was large and spread across the nation, but summers were the highlight of the year for the grandkids. Each of the two dozen grandkids spent any where from a week to a month during the summer with our grandparents living the idyllic life. We cousins loved playing together, even though Grandpa made us get up by 8 a.m. and go to bed by 10 p.m.
Grandma and Grandpa lived in a small town. We could ride bikes and go to the park at will. We made forts, went to the movies, and went swimming every day. There were usually enough of us visiting at any one time that we could play group games such as hide and seek. It was a great time of fun and drawing closer to our kin and every one of we cousins loved summers at our grandparent's house.
While lighthearted and appreciating a good joke, Grandpa lived by a strict code of rules. He believed in honesty, logic, respect, hard work, living life on a schedule and healthy living. Fresh air, plenty of exercise and a nutritious diet limited in sweets was his idea of the proper way to live. Two of his rules for a proper diet, which, for most of the year he vigorously lived up to, were no snacking between meals and no soda pop.
Most kids can find an adult's vulnerability to exploit and we learned Grandpa had a crack in his strict facade of rules when we discovered his weakness for ice cream and root beer! Now he would never admit to this weakness and he worked hard to justify it, bending his ever-present logic to cover his lapse in conviction. We knew not to kill opportunity when it knocked, so we didn't point out the broken rule.
The highlight of our days occurred on the front porch with Grandpa giving in to his weakness. Every afternoon when we arrived home from swimming, he would gather us on the porch and serve up root beer floats! If our parents happened to comment or complain (because they never got root beer floats as children) on his loosening his rule about snacking, he called it "a late dessert from lunch." (Never mind that Sundays were the only time Grandma made dessert.)
We also learned he considered root beer "different" from soda pop, although he never explained how. We never argued with Grandpa's logic, which usually got us refills.
A grandmother myself now, I can still see the satisfied grin on Grandpa's face as he exclaimed over the great satisfaction one got from a "really good root beer float on a hot day." Every time I go for an afternoon piece of chocolate cake, I remember Grandpa and his "late dessert from lunch" concept for bending a self-discipline rule. Thanks Grandpa! I salute your insight!
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