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.
