Photo Credit: Courtesy of Ron Ciancutti
You know what the problem is with you kids today? You know everything, and if you don’t know, you look it up on that dang phone of yours and then you know it within a minute. When I was eight or 10 years old, I didn’t have a phone—I had a grandpa. And just like your phone, he knew everything.
He took me everywhere. He had a red Buick and when he would pull into my parent’s driveway and honk, I got my jacket and ran to the car. “I’m going with your dad, Mom,’ I would say as I sailed out the door. “OK,” she said with a smile as she fried her chicken or brushed my sister’s hair. I might be gone an hour, or I might be gone a day, but I was safely with her dad, and he and I were best friends.
I never asked where we were going. Sometimes he went golfing with his friend and they let me drive the cart. Sometimes he wanted to go fishing and he had the bait dug, picnic packed, and a hot spot already picked out. Other times he took me to work at his barber shop, and I read comic books all day and listened to old men tell big stories. Then we would go to lunch at the drugstore across the street and later play with the slot cars next door. Now and then we went to the pool room and he shot snooker while I ate pretzels and drank Dad’s Root Beer from the bottle. Do I need to tell you the pool room smelled like cigars and beer and old wood floors and green felt? If I close my eyes, I can smell all that right now; it was wonderful. I can hear the click-clacking discs that were used to keep score that hung from the ceiling. Players moved them with their cue sticks, and I heard the crack of the balls start another contest; there must have been 30 tables. It was loud in there, and men would walk up to me and say, “You with Grandpa today, kid?” I would nod and smile and look them in the eye as I was taught to do. If I shook their hand, I tried so hard to squeeze it tightly, like my dad said I should. They would tousle my hair and yell to my grandpa—“Hey, Pasquale! You gotta a good kid here!” He would nod and smile. They gave me a buck or a couple coins most of the time because that’s what men used to do. See, young boys need to be in the company of men! It’s how they learn, how they are formed, and how they copy the patterns of masculinity a and gentleman’s habits. I loved hanging around those guys.