Grandpa's Tobacco Jar (1957) In English and Spanish

He sat down in his sofa-chair-behind the tall reading lamp, that extended an inch or so over the back of the chair, taking one of his wooden pipes laying in the standup ashtray next to his chair, and stuck two matches together-Chick (his grandson) sitting on the couch observing him from the corner of his eye, while watching a western on television, he had previously filled the pipe with tobacco from his tobacco jar he kept on his bedroom dresser, and once lit he dropped the matches into the ashtray, for once not missing it, and having it land on the floor: mumbling and cussing all the time under his breath, like who-knows-what, only he knew what he was saying, the Old Russian Bear, as Chick called him, figured he simply did it out of habit, or perhaps talking to his demons.

"Dont ya go-a turin' da channel ven I gone, ya her-me!" he said to Chick as he stood up, walked through the bedroom to the bathroom, never once looking at Chick longer than a half-second, it wasn't a question, although it might have sounded like one, it was a statement, and perhaps in a light form, a statement-question, yet rhetorical, not necessarily meant to be answered verbally, only acknowledged with a look, or nod of the head. Once old grandpa (not quite five-foot tall) disappeared into the shadows of the bathroom door, now open for a spell-soon to be shut, Chick quickly got up and hightailed it to the kitchen knowing the direct route to the icebox, and knowing exactly where the pears and apples and oranges were, and out they come one by one into his side pockets of his robe, and next, he rushed back like a deer to where he was sitting, picking up his old apple, as if to disguise his race against time, then a second later, grandpa appeared, he was mumbling and cussing again, and Chick looked up from his position on the long coach, a flat affect on his ten-year-old face as if he had never left, his heart hardly pounding, grandpa brushing off the ashes from the sofa-seat of his sofa chair, his eye caught Chick eating the apple, unknowingly, the next three apples he had put in his robe pockets, would appear one by one-(in due time), to him as if he was eating the same one-slowly; it was simply, he didn't' want his grandpa to discover the principle of his deception at its most fundamental obscurities, lest he be made fun of for eating him, and his mother and his brother Mike-whom all lived together as if in an extended family, out of house and home, because the Old Russian Bear took a disliking for that chopping and chewing noise and seeing and monitoring (which he didn't have to do, but seemingly by compulsion forced to do) eating, apple after apple, after apple, and you can add that pear and orange in there, it annoyed him, and made him mumble and cuss more. Grandpa took another look, Chick now blinking as if he had something caught in his eye, he had eaten the apple core and all, as he had learned to do-part of the three-year deception, from ten to thirteen, and had a new apple in his hands, this time grandpa looked a second and a half, said, "Humm...mmm..." as if he was trying to figure out the charade, then back to those new formed cuss words, half in English and half in Russian, so no one could ever figure out completely what he was saying, he had his own black book of cuss words, it would have seemed, somewhat coded.

Was Chick a sneak? Yes, oh yes, sneaky he was-likened to a spider to a fly (but sneaky because it was called for, out of demand for the right to eat his fruit and watch television at the same time his grandpa was watching it), and he'd tell you so right to your face, upfront, if you'd had asked him, he'd even had told you himself, "Boy am I sneaky, but I got to be..." and had you been there, you might have even caught him mumbling something to that effect, as his old grandpa sat bolt upright in that sofa chair, watching 'Da Long Ranger,' or 'Hop-along Cassidy,' (or dat cowboy vith da white hair) as he'd referred to the two of the many westerns he'd watch-peacefully watch; yet, and nothing nowhere, and nobody anywhere in the world anymore could anguish or disturb him, and consequently he got a rest from that automatic cussing he did, lest they wanted that black book of cuss words to come out and the echo sounding like drums beating and not knowing exactly what they were saying but knowing they were cuss words of some nature, because he was in his tomb of silence, for the evening, and forevermore loving it, and God forbid, should you disturbed him at this sacred moment

Article written by Dennis Siluk Ed.D.