![]() They filled your studio and over time got covered in dust. You painted with the tiniest of black dots and won heaps of blue ribbons at the California state fair. You loved General Custer even though you called him an “Indian killer.” Your ability to create art was sort of a paradox. You taught me about volcanoes and the Golden Gate Bridge and obsidian. And if what you told me is true, you gave them sons-a-bitches a piece of your mind. A family who, decades later, came knocking because gram’s family had left her some money and, by god, they needed some of it. Back to the sticks and your stoic family. You knew if you bucked the system it was back to the farm with you. In uniform you found a place amongst similar rule-following men. Came home from the service after the war all rigid and heavy-handed. Like, a lot.įamily lore is truth, right? Which means you were a verbally abusive narcissist. And gramps, the stuff you did before I knew you hurt a lot of people. But make no mistake, I spent a lot of time covering for you, too. I loved you because, to me, you were lovable. Which was a less assholeish version of the you my mom knew. And she was right, you had had a good life. “He had a good life,” she said before you died. You were a fraction of the man she married. Gram didn’t mind, or didn’t seem to anyway. You slipped into a childhood brogue and cried your little green eyes out like a baby. Which is when she became another face in the crowd. “She’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me,” you said. Louis heritage and how your unlikely ass linked up with the likes of my grandma. Of your shoeless childhood and all those bread scraps tossed at you by that old German baker. ![]() This bed has been in Gramps' family for a long time, and it is now their "marriage bed.Been a while since I thought of you, old man. It turns out, Gramps' father and brothers sneaked the bed in during the wedding party as a surprise present. On the night of their wedding, they return to the little cabin that they've just built and that will be their home, and they find a bed.Right then and there, Gram agrees to marry him. So Gram asks Gramps how he treats his beagle, and Gramps tells her how much he loves and adores his beagle.We're sure that's not the answer he's looking for, but he plays along anyway, and tells her he has a beagle. Her response? She asks him if he has a dog.Her father says he can go right ahead if he can manage to catch her. He chases her around for twenty-two days, and on the twenty-third day, he asks her father for permission to marry her.Gramps sees her one day and just knows she's his true love. In the flashback, Gram is a wild thing who runs free in the fields and meadows.This story gives Sal an opportunity to tell us a little bit about how Gram and Gramps met, so we flash back to the olden days in Kentucky. ![]() He and all of his siblings were born in that bed, and his children were born in that bed. It belonged to Gramps' parents before it belonged to him and Gram. Apparently, Gram and Gramps' bed in Bybanks has been around for a really long time.Sal tells us that every night, Gramps pats the bed that he will sleep in and say, "'well, this ain't our marriage bed, but it will do.'" (12.13) What's this all about? Aside from this strange encounter, though, everyone is very friendly in Pipestone.Sal doesn't quite catch his drift, so she asks him again if he is Native American, and he responds by telling her he is American Indian.While she's there, Sal asks a man if he is Native American.Gramps, Gram, and Sal share a peace pipe with someone. At the national monument, they learn all about the sacred rock that American Indians have quarried (cut) for centuries to create sacred pipes. Near the South Dakota border, Gramps decides to take a slight detour north Pipestone, MN.But they're quite kooky, so they interrupt a lot to ask questions or to give Sal kisses. Gram and Gramps become more and more interested in the story of Phoebe Winterbottom.
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