Grandpa Ferrara would have been 95 years old today. Happy Birthday, Grandpa.
About the Ferrara men: For every task, there is at least one idea about how to do it per Ferrara male involved, sometimes more. I’m not certain if that’s a Ferrara trait or just a y-chromosome thing. When Grandpa and his brother, Joe, did something together, it was high comedy. I watched them do something together at our house one time when I must have been 6 or 7. How Uncle Joe talked to Grandpa that day and vice versa...................let’s just say that’s not how I was allowed to talked to either of them. They seemed to take joy in annoying each other and it was very funny to me. When Grandpa and Dad did something together, it was best to evacuate. I don’t think Grandpa intentionally annoyed Dad like he did his brothers but he annoyed Dad much more than he did them. It may have been their terms of endearment but it never seemed that way to me. Thankfully, they didn’t do that much together.
About Grandpa and me: Grandpa died before Patsy and I moved to Bush. He lived fairly close to us when we lived in Metairie and he liked to stay busy. Back in the days when I would sleep in on Saturday mornings, he would sometimes drop in unannounced and very early to fix something that he thought needed attention. He also liked to drop by in the late afternoon after I had been in the yard all day, had just finished showering, and was beat. His timing was always awful. We didn’t work all that well together, either, but the help was mostly appreciated. Everything at that house needed fixing. Dad and I hardly ever worked on any task together. Neither of us are/were good at fixing things so that was a fortunate circumstance. We argued quite a bit as anyone, who ever sat at the dinner table with us, could tell you. We didn’t have the same tastes in music, books, or movies and our politics were different so there is no reason to believe we would have worked together very well, either.
The one thing Dad and I did together fairly often, though, was boil crawfish. We are/were in total agreement about how to do that. That was a total collaborative effort and our methods evolved over many years. My neighbors and my nephew, Aaron, paid us the highest possible compliments last year when they said we have spoiled boiled crawfish for them. They said others, including restaurants, don’t do it as well. Considering those sources and considering how many people boil crawfish around here, that was high praise indeed.
Finally, David and I were oil and water as kids but we do fine together now. The jury is out on Matthew and David. Maybe the page is turning.
This was lovely, Robbie. I think the job you remembered was putting in an air conditioner in the girls' bedroom, although I did not remember Grandpa was involved in that. Uncle Joe was a funny man I always thought. So was Uncle Vic. The older fellows, Russell, Pete, and Red were not.
Don't remember the older uncles and it wasn't the AC thing you're talking about. I remember Uncle Joe on a ladder near your bedroom window on the side of the house. Don't remember what they were doing.
Uncle Joe and Grandpa looked a lot alike. I don't recall seeing Joe before he came to fix a washing machine or dryer problem. I saw him working on the appliance and ran to him, enthusiastically greeting him, "Grandpa!!!!" He gruffly said, without really looking at me, "I'm not your Grandpa." That was the end of that. Talk about cold.
I had to have my dying mustang towed to Grandpa's house many times to be fixed because I couldn't afford a mechanic in those days-1987. He always rigged it with string and tape and got me running again. Good old Grandpa Ferrara.