GP was a gentleman. He had a way of making me feel welcome in very few words. He was always eager to ask about my schooling and Matt’s and my marriage.
We started having children in 2006, and GP became GREAT GP. The Train Master. Coal and diesel run in the Pernot veins, I believe, so the moment Great Grandpa knew the kids were afflicted with the train bug, there was a steady stream of knick knacks and magazines coming into our home from Hillcrest Drive. We’d visit Grandpa with the kids, and he’d take them down to Heaven...which strangely looked and smelled very much like a train yard in the basement of suburbia. The kids would usually break something in their eagerness to get closer to all the Coca Cola paraphernalia. I’d turn red and apologize profusely. Grandpa never yelled at them. He’d look over the broken thing, say “Oh, Phawwwww!” and ask the kids to pick something out to bring home. He’d turn on anything with noise and lights and rev up the kids, just the same as any grandmother loading up grandkids with sugar before sending them home. He loved every moment. He loved the babies.
We were blessed to be able to spend a good deal of time with Grandpa when we lived in Syracuse. He was so gracious to open his home to us whenever we traveled in. He always made room on the back porch for all of us.
He loved to tell stories and show us pictures. He LOVED to show pictures of himself as a child and a growing young man. He’d ask me if any of the kids looked like him. The answer was and still remains “yes” because HOLY SMOKES! THAT PERNOT GENE IS STRONG!!!!
Grandpa loved to tell stories. His favorite was about that time Grandma went skinny dipping in the pool in the back yard...he’d laugh and laugh and laugh. He loved talking about Grandpa Charles and how the children were carrying on the red hair. He loved telling stories about Grandma Julia and how his boys tormented her so awfully...but she secretly loved it. Grandpa listened well. He liked to be told about our life. If I’d ever say anything that made him uncomfortable or embarrassed or that we disagreed on, he’d silently shrug his shoulders and raise his hands in the air and I’d know to move on to a new topic.
Grandpa loved trains. He loved ice cream and snacks. He loved whistling and he loved to make jokes. Grandpa loved to get into trouble. Grandpa was a child’s dream. His simplicity and child-like joy made the children flock to him. It made perfect sense to share a vacation with him in Strasburg. His only request was that he was able to have his own caboose to sleep in. We went on train rides and ate snacks. We walked around train museums for hours. We went to a doll museum that ended up feeling like a corner in purgatory and we barely escaped with our lives. Grandpa liked to remind us that doll museums did not belong in train country. We ate dinner at a pizza place in town and we drank beverages from BEER MART. We kept the children’s nap and bedtime schedules and that worked out perfectly for Grandpa because he also got to rest and sleep well. We went out to ice cream and grandpa showed the kids how to pull the cherries out of their ice cream with their fingers before actually eating the rest of the cone. He made them laugh. He always tried to pay first for everything. He’d call it “hammering”. On the very rare occasion that I’d make it to the waitress or cash register first, he’d wave his hand through the air dismissively at me and say, “Oh PHAWWWWW! I got hammered! I’ll be the one who does the hammering around here!”
Grandpa loved sugar. When he came to our home in Syracuse for a family reunion, he walked into my kitchen with a little twinkle in his eye and asked what he could do to help with the food. I put him and Sarah on drink detail. I must have had some sort of brain malfunction that day, because I saw Grandpa reach for the pink lemonade mix and grab the large cooler for the water...and I felt safe. Welllllllll, a few minutes later, I heard peals of laughter coming from the kitchen. Grandpa and Sarah had tried to do the math and calculate how many scoops of sugar went in how many gallons of water...and then they gave up and just started dumping. The result was a hot pink concoction that was too sweet for ANYONE, even Grandpa, to drink. Bernie walked in the kitchen, took one look at the lemonade cooler and asked where the stand was. Sarah and Grandpa started looking around the kitchen and in the cooler box. As they started to leave to look in Bernie’s car for the missing lemonade stand, Grandpa asked “What’s inside the lemonade cooler?” There, floating right inside the newly-made lemonade was the stand. Grandpa laughed and laughed and accused Sarah of always getting him into trouble.
From then on, “Trouble” became the name of the game. “How can we get into trouble this time?” he’d say to the kids as we’d pile out of the car on onto his driveway. They’d line up, he’d give them all “Zips” up their heads, and I’d feel as though the number of children I had just increased by one.
Grandpa was quirky. He bought a Colorado and kept it in his garage. The kids asked him once how it traveled in the snow or in the dirt. He looked at them with bug eyes and said that he wouldn’t drive a truck as beautiful as that even in the rain! He took them for rides in his new truck. He showed them that they must keep their garage floors clean for their cars. “Everything has a special place,” he said, as he reached for his secret stash of chips in the garage. Grandpa always made me laugh.
I could go on and on about the magnificence of such a man and all the fun we had and conversations we shared. Of how dearly we held him in our hearts. Of how special he made the children feel. We know he is reunited with his wife, just as he’s wanted for years now.
We love you GP. We hope you find some trouble up there. Every time we see a train or hear a whistle, we’ll think of you.
