Bucket o' Blood

I went to the doctor today. He upped my dosage of Prozac. Yay me. I did that a week ago. I feel pretty good actually. Yesterday I bought my Christmas tree. Today I actually decorated it. Yes Mom, it has lights and balls and everything on it. I even have my angel on top of my tree.

The angle was my grandfather’s. I called him Bumpa. He was a great man. When I was little he was my favorite playmate. Seems like the old lady was always getting pissed at us and kicking us outside. We spent many a weekend together. Bumpa is my mother’s father. He was a huge man easily standing 6’4” and built like a skyscraper. He was a master carpenter. He worked construction his whole life. He built shopping malls, the Mass Turnpike and even Seabook Nuclear Plant. He was a hard worker. When he was young he was a hard drinker. Around about the time I came along he had mellowed a bit but that didn’t stop him from throwing a Massachusetts State Trooper through a plate glass window at the “Bucket o' Blood”.

Bumpa’s benders were epic. He would come home on a Friday night after being at work out of town all week and give my grandmother some of his paycheck and disappear with the rest. He would routinely lose his car. Inevitably, we would find it parked outside of some seedy joint. He hung with a rough crowd but he had a heart of gold. He had a habit of bringing home strays. I mean dogs and people. You never really knew who was going to show up for dinner whether it be a stray cat or some dude down on his luck. That was Lou’s (that was his God given name) way. He was always helping the down trodden.

He was one of the best playmates I’ve ever had. We didn’t play dolls and crap like that (although he would of). We played construction site. I used to take his chalk line and snap chalk all over my grandmother’s sidewalks. She would pitch such a fit. He loved it. My Bumpa taught me how to drive a nail into a 2 x 4 with one shot. I practiced that so many times until I finally mastered it. I was psyched and he was all hugs and smiles. I had impressed him.

Another thing we used to do is go get bread for Sunday dinner. Sunday dinner was a big affair where all family members showed up. It didn’t matter that my Nonnie couldn’t cook for shit. We were all always there on Sunday. I’m very fond of those memories. On Saturday afternoons the old lady would send me and Bumpa out for bread. Now mind you the bakery was only 2 minutes from the house but our outings lasted hours. We would stop at Harold’s Package Store and buy a 12 pack so that Bump had beer while we drove around. We would just take rides. We would get lost for hours. I had some of my best philosophical conversations of my life on those rides. Bumpa was a simple man with a very old soul. He taught me many invaluable lessons and left me with many of his witticisms that I still use today.