The Red Flannel Rag

knots on your eyes?" At about that time a motorcycle went zooming up the road, and my

little brother asked, "Are you going to ride a motorcycle when you get them knots off

your eyes?" Grandpa smiled at him--the only smile I ever remember seeing on his face.

Grandpa's mean persona provided material for little poems that my brother,

John, and I made up about him. "Austin, Austin, sitting on a pole; pull back, pull back,

shoot him in the hole. Austin, Austin, ran out of gas; hurry up, hurry up, shoot him in

the ass.”

John and I adopted Grandpa Austin’s mean persona to cope with our world for

many years. Eventually I recognized I was covering for my fear of the world, and in my

discovery I recognized how scared Grandpa Austin was of the world.

Grandpa Austin taught me about being connected. He had a white mule that he

had bred and raised. Occasionally he would harness the mule and go up on the

mountain to get a pole of wood for the stove. One morning during his eighty-second

year, he went to the barn to feed his old white mule. The mule was dead. Grandpa came

into the house, announced that his mule was dead, stated that he had no reason to live,

got into the living room bed, and got up only once again. He lay there for months while

Grandma Molly complained that there was no wood stacked on the porch for the winter.

One day he got tired of her nagging, got out of bed, and slowly made his way to the

woodpile. He picked up his axe and raised it above his head to chop a block of wood.

The weight of the axe caused his to lose his balance and fall backwards. He rolled down

the hill to the edge of the “BIG” road before he stopped. Grandma Molly and Lena

helped him back up the hill and into the house. He returned to his bed. Four years later

he died in that same bed.

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