The Fake Grandfather (excerpt from War and Peas)

My grandmother lived on a sprawling dairy farm with our fake grandfather,  whom  we called  “New Papa”.  He was our fake grandfather because our real grandfather died  when my father was young. Somehow referring to him as our “fake” grandfather captured the greatness of our late grandfather and the shortcomings of New Papa in one tidy adjective. 

 There was no evidence that New Papa had an appreciation for precocious children like my cousins and me. As luck would have it, he didn’t seem to like children at all.  His remedy to finding children insufferable was to marry a woman with four of them.  They in turn beget him 13 fake grandchildren. Our whole relationship with New Papa was like the cold war. He found us foolish and impetuous, and often childlike (we were)  and thus countered by being stingy and petty. Except for occasionally reprimanding him for acting like us,  our Grandmother made a conscious and totally successful effort to ignore the fray.

From my earliest memories of New Papa when he was in his late fifties, he always looked like he was 100. He was not a tall man but he was a bit heavy, very wrinkly, had a scary nose and he always dressed like a pallbearer.  He was clearly not one of us.

 If he had play clothes, he kept them well hidden.  As a nine year old busy developing my theories on life, I believed that there could be a class of adults that never experienced childhood.  I classified really old wrinkly people that I was unable to imagine as a child, as candidates for  this class. New Papa claimed to be raised by his aunts, but he seemed more like a grownup who had skipped childhood and he was a major consideration in the development of my theory. 

The Christmas of ‘63 was among my most memorable as a child.   Along with my father’s 3 other siblings' families, we went to our grandmother’s farm to spend the day with  our extended family.  In retrospect, this Christmas  might not have been my finest hour,  but it was a manipulative coup for New Papa who reveled in what unfolded.  When my  10 cousins, and siblings Liz and Jack,  and I were set loose to open our gifts under the tree, we  dashed into the living room and screeched to  a halt at the sight of 12 very tiny presents, and one large present, twice the size of a breadbox.  

With regard to children’s presents in the 1960’s,  it was well known that there was absolutely no truth to the  adage "good things come in small packages".   Consequently, there was a huge 13 child flesh pile on the large box, everyone scrambling to read the name tag.  “ Margaux Junior ???” they shouted in surprise and unison, delivered more like a question.  I worked my way out from beneath the pile, pausing briefly to assess my rug burns and put my dress in order.  I couldn’t believe my ears.  Margaux Jr – that was me!  My fake grandfather who insisted on calling me by my formal name….threw “jr” in as a weak attempt at humor.  He liked me best, I was his favorite,   I was great.  Who could believe I had hit the jack pot.  I stood tall and worked my way through the gauntlet of puzzled cousins, and tore open  the Christmas wrap.  I had done far more than hit the jackpot, I had won the Irish sweep-stakes.  The box contained a 13” Sears and Roebuck Kenmore Black and White TV set…Probably their finest I thought, until I had a moment to reflect on New Papa’s buying style.  Second thought, maybe their least fine but it was a TV set and it was mine.  I carefully removed it from the box, secured the rabbit ears and got a towel to drape over myself and the TV so that no one else could watch.  

In a weak moment that night in bed,  I considered  that maybe New Papa pegged me as the grandchild least likely to share....  but its not like all of the other grandchildren were  forgotten.  They each got a deck of cards…life was good.

Queen Victoria

          As is the custom in many W.A.S.P. extended families, the first grandchild tends to name the grandparents before he or she has developed any command of the King’s English. Such was the case in our family when the oldest grandchild, Nick, named our grandmother “Bom Bom”  (pronounced bum bum).

          Bom Bom was our matriarch – a very kind, strong woman of great compassion, intellect, and an insatiable curiosity of life. When she spoke, we listened.  Her knowledge of history, science, and literature was so vast, I was of the belief that she had retained everything she had ever been taught.
As part of her oversight, Bom Bom  often lent a hand in many areas of the farm, particularly with animals in labor. She also believed that there was never a bad time for a good lesson. When a lamb had died being transported between barns, she found it a fine time for an anatomy lesson. She borrowed a farm hand’s pocket knife and slit the lamb from stem to stern. She then began pointing out the various organs and their functions, scolding any grandchildren who were squeamish. 

          As with any competitive family, games often occupied our spare time, and frequently led to acrimony. On the rare occasion when we might have committed a transgression, a stern lecture was delivered at the family meal following whatever transgression might have taken place. Whenever we fell short of Bom Bom’s expectations, she would open with “Queen Victoria is not amused,” and we knew that a lecture was not far behind. Bom Bom continued by telling us that she had heard us playing croquet and that our language had been much too colorful and very unbecoming for children of any age – the use of this language had become a crutch that was a product of a lazy mind and must stop then and there. There was no denying her observation, but Penn politely countered that:


     1. croquet was not a polite game, and
     2. it was not a game that could be played civilly…certainly not in our overly competitive family.


Croquet had been played in our family for more than 100 years, dating back to when helmets were part of the equipment. Furthermore, there was substantial evidence that we were descendants of the first family of croquet, the Jaques family. It was clearly in our blood, and we could only hope to channel that energy into a winning strategy. Still, Queen Victoria was unmoved by Penn’s compelling argument, and she asked where we had learned this colorful language. Jack and Stain replied in unison “Dad” (Bom Bom’s sons). Bom Bom replied, “ Oh…….oh, my.” Jack followed, explaining that he had heard some of these words after his dad had been kicked by a horse. Stain added that his dad knew all of the bad words by heart. Bom Bom had heard enough, and the mandate barring foul language was enacted. No one knew how the banishment of colorful language might manifest itself. As it was, the unvented energy resulted in many a ball being sent across the road to Uncle Owl’s sheep farm, a feat of incredible strength.

          On another occasion several grandchildren were playing Monopoly. Chip asked the others if they were going to be observing “box” rules or “cheating” rules. They all agreed that this game would be played under “cheating” rules. When “cheating” rules were observed, anything went, resulting in a much shorter game. Properties were stolen, houses and hotels pinched, and players advanced closer to “Go.” When Chip bent Marigold’s finger back until she gave him Marvin Gardens, Bom Bom intervened. She picked up the board and stopped the game, saying that there would be no “cheating” in games at the farm.

Having just pinched $2000 from the bank, no one protested louder than Marigold, but the protests fell on deaf ears.


          Penn and Chip went on to play Stratego. Bom Bom, keeping a close eye on things, asked what war they were fighting. While the game did not involve any specific war reenactment, Chip thought it best to respond with the name of some war and replied, “World War II.” At that point Bom Bom insisted that Penn return three of Chip’s brilliantly won destroyers, explaining that they were playing in a manner that was historically inaccurate. She went on to review the major naval battles of the war and insist that if they were going to continue playing, they needed to be faithful to history.


          Bom Bom assumed great responsibility in the matters of the culture and education of her grandchildren. What followed over the next few years were three epic trips, taking various groups of grandchildren to Europe. She had a very resourceful approach focusing on the 10-13 year olds: old enough to be self-sufficient and too young to partake in the nightlife. See "The Incredible Journey".

 Clean-up Editor: Toni Gardner, Author of  Walking Where The Dog Walks

Poodles and Tabloids (excerpt from War and Peas)

     As a hobby, our grandmother ran a kennel of world class show poodles. Show dogs tend to attract an eclectic group of kennel employees and my grandmother’s help was no different. We used to like to hang out in the kennel for 2 reasons. First, we liked to spy on the dog people - the women dressed in skin tight leopard pants that did not accentuate their best features and they had frizzy red permed hair. The men were flamboyant and effeminate. They all used colorful language and although we were not always sure what they were talking about, we knew it was naughty and we were skilled at faking an understanding.

I never knew quite what to make of the quirky dog people, but they were a source of curiosity not found elsewhere.….. Second, the dog pens were lined with a grand variety of tabloids like the National Enquirer, and tabloids were difficult to come by in our family of intellectuals. My cousin Stain and I would peruse the paper stacks and sneak the very best articles back to our homes where we would refer to them often. My clothing bureau had a secret drawer and I kept them there for safekeeping. 
     Stain acquired his nick name from being an energetic little kid who put far more enthusiasm into his activities than his appearance. He generally ate on the run and usually had some evidence of grass, ketchup, mustard, or chocolate on his shirt and face.

We both hated reading - our distaste applied especially to the weak selections chosen by our teachers - books with way too many pages burdened with words too long to fit aesthetically on them, and far too few pictures….I was of the opinion that even a really bad picture was better than the written word. These assigned books were by authors with names like Kipling and Melville. It would seem as though the characters could only land a part in the book if they had a strange name like Mowgli or Ishmael. Any hope of setting the hook in my fragile attention span was lost the moment the characters commenced speaking in strange dialects. Controlling my imagination was like herding cats and under the best of circumstances reading was way too structured and confining. But the tabloid periodicals were special. They had just the right mix of pertinent news and photos, and the really important stories used color pictures. Stain and I would enter the kennel with the same intellectual curiosity others had when they entered a library. We were on a mission to catch up on the news that we were not regularly exposed to on network Tv or in our local newspaper.

Today, tabloids focus mainly on celebrity news. In the 60’s celebrity news was found in magazines at your hair salon. Tabloids had much broader coverage of the news. When they were not covering the major stories like Jackie Kennedy, people being run over by trains or of grizzly  murders complete with low resolution color photos, they focused on human encounters with aliens. The aliens would perform cruel experiments on their abductees and steal the women’s eggs which would be used to cross-breed with aliens. This is because aliens had a natural curiosity about Earthlings. The stories included interviews with the victims and they were quoted saying things like “When he paralyzed us with his ray gun, I thought it was the end of time”.

 Barney and Betty Hill were 2 Americans abducted by aliens during my childhood. Accounts of their horrifying experience, were published by all of the tabloids. After the Hill’s came forth, many other alien abductees did as well. Thanks to the hardnosed journalism of the tabloid reporters, they were able to procure and publish actual photos of the whole terrifying experience. The daily papers like the Washington Post and New York Times had 2^nd rate reporters who unlike aliens, had no natural curiosity, so they never covered these stories. The possibility that our fake grandfather could be the spawn of an alien having his way with an abducted Earth woman, was not lost on this nine year old.

       I chose the Hill’s alien abduction, for my current event report in school. My report was thorough and well documented. While my classmates were appreciative and full of questions, my teacher Mrs. Riley was not impressed.

Next to the “D” she put at the top of my paper, she made a list of acceptable resources. It did not include a single tabloid. I believe that I was one of the first to identify the shortcomings of our educational system.

The Pop Gun, The Bomb, and The Hostage

             We moved to our farm in the Fall of 1960.  I had been very excited about the move to the country.  We had been living in a post WWII development where as a 5 year old I wasn’t quite going around the block by myself. I wasn’t allowed to cross the street by myself either, although on at least one occasion crossing with Jack presented its own peril.

         The first time he took me across the street to his buddy Ricky Curtain’s house, I was the unwitting human ransom in a skeevy, ill-conceived plot to get his pop gun back. Ricky was a nice kid so I was more shocked than frightened about what was going down….That was until 2 other kids, Buster and Bowser arrived with Jack’s pop gun. They were brothers, 9 and 10 years old – almost grown-ups, and they were bad.  They were both big with dirty blond hair, and Bowser had a black eye.  Neither one had a last name.  They lived 3 blocks away.   I knew they were bad because I had seen them trying to set a ping pong ball on fire on our sidewalk outside of our house.  As someone who was confined to a pretty “short leash” due to my age,  I was very territorial about the areas to which I had unfettered access.  When I saw them playing with matches  I  rushed over from our sand box and told them that they were going to catch on fire.  They responded by giving me the stink eye and telling me to scram. I did scram but not before I warned them one more time that they would likely burst into flames. 

         When used as designed, a pop gun was a harmless toy gun that made an annoying loud bang when fired. It appealed to boys like my brother who were too young for a bb gun. However, when the barrel was cleverly packed with mud and pebbles it made a loud bang and shot mud and pebbles, which of course lead to numerous wounds and eye injuries across America.  This creative use limited its longevity on the toy market, depriving future generations of children, resourceful ways to injure each other.

 I was well aware that catching on fire was one of the 3 most common injuries to children.  The other two of course were cracking your head open and getting  an eye poked out.  Cracking your head open was a common injury that frequently occurred during any unsanctioned activity that could result in a spill, like jumping on a bed. 

  Conversely, playing with sticks or anything sharper than a tennis ball (or a pop gun) often resulted in the loss of an eye.   

We were warned so much about playing with matches that I was under the impression that children were inherently flammable.   Additionally, one of the laws of nature seemed to be that someone who was not allowed to play with matches was far more likely to burst into flames than someone who was allowed to have matches. I did not know that there was a name for what happened when a child got too close to matches but I learned a few years later that it was referred to as spontaneous combustion. 

When I saw Buster and Bowser at the Curtain’s I knew that my luck had run out. They gave Jack his gun and told him to scram.  He looked very apologetically at me and left to go home to dinner. I got up to follow when Buster told me to sit down and watch TV.  I started scoping out the room looking for an escape route when I realized that I was stuck because I couldn’t cross the street even if I did sneak out.

          I began to have a greater appreciation for parental supervision, which was conspicuous by its absence at this moment. Mrs. Curtain was a nice lady; where the heck was she?  I calmly sat hostage on the Curtain’s couch, sitting between Buster and Bowser with the black eye. Ricky turned the TV to the Early Show because it was “Tarzan the Ape Man” week.  This wasn’t so bad because I would  have been watching it at home before dinner. It was just a matter of time before my Dad would come rescue me the way Tarzan was always saving his son “Boy”... but what if they hadn’t missed me at dinner?  I glanced over at Buster who had pulled out a jack knife from one pocket and a small box of wooden matches from the other.  He opened the knife and started cutting the little red heads off the matches, making a not so neat little red pile in his lap. 

This was great.  Not only was I about to burst into flames but the flying knife resulting from the explosion would put out one of my eyes.  I inched closer to Bowser. I thought of reminding Buster of the likelihood that he could burst into flames at any moment but thought better of it. I did point out that any slip of the knife would probably result in one of us getting an eye poked out.  He remained unfazed. Then I asked him what he was going to do with the pile of match heads and he said he was building a bomb.  In past crisis’s I had realized some success by threatening to hold my breath and following through. While I didn’t think that Buster or Bowser would be moved by my facial contortions and beet red face the way our babysitters had been, it was all I had. I took a very deep noisy breath, stuck an index finger in each ear for effect, ballooned my cheeks and began my last breath.

Buster and Bowser both looked my way with some concern. I don’t think they cared if I expired but  Buster was concerned that his match heads might get blown all over the room when I exhaled. Just when I was about to have to start another last breath, Jack reappeared to save me.  He announced that our parents said that I had to go home.  Having worn them out with my questions, warnings, and annoyances, Buster and Bowser looked quite relieved and said “great, take her”.  That was the anti-climactic end to the hostage situation.  A “win win” for all, I jumped up and gladly went  home with Jack. They were conceivably even more happy to have me leave.