{"id":16720,"date":"2020-05-01T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-05-01T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sasee.wpenginepowered.com\/?p=16720"},"modified":"2024-03-26T15:08:42","modified_gmt":"2024-03-26T19:08:42","slug":"a-grandpas-tall-tail","status":"publish","type":"essay","link":"https:\/\/sasee.com\/ro\/essay\/a-grandpas-tall-tail\/","title":{"rendered":"A Grandpa\u2019s Tall Tail"},"content":{"rendered":"

And then one day it happened. I would be tested to see just how great a Grandpa I really was.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n

I wasn\u2019t lucky enough to have had a real relationship with my grandparents. By the time I was born, my grandmother and grandfather were well into their eighties, feeble and sickly. So, when my granddaughter was born, I promised myself that I would do everything in my power to give her the experience that I had missed. I wanted to be the best grandfather a kid could have, and I set out to do just that.<\/p>\n

In summer we splashed in the ocean playing Marco Polo and building sand castle cities on the sandy shore, the sun on our faces. When fall came, we piled leaves high, laughing as we dove into raked stacks, carved jack-o-lanterns, and created Halloween disguises for trick-or-treating. As soon as winter\u2019s white flakes began to fall, I was waxing up the toboggan and searching out the steepest sledding hills. We built armies of snowmen, created flocks of snow angels. When spring arrived, there were Easter egg hunts and visits to a historical farm where my granddaughter would pet farm animals and was even able to try her hand at milking a cow.<\/p>\n

On Saturdays we would see children\u2019s plays or magic shows. My Sunday ritual of watching football on TV was replaced with DVDs of movies like Annie or The Little Mermaid which we watched together so many times that I could sing and recite every word of dialog along with the characters. Every birthday was wrapped in crepe paper and floating balloons as we baked and decorated a cake together. I truly felt that I had lived up to the promise I\u2019d made myself \u2013 to be the best grandfather a kid could have. And then one day it happened. I would be tested to see just how great a Grandpa I really was.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere are we going?\u201d my four-year-old granddaughter questioned.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a surprise.\u201d I smiled.<\/p>\n

\u201cAre we going to the ride park?\u201d she asked, and before the twinkle in her eye had a chance to fade, we were passing through the entrance of Playland. From that second on, tracking her was like following the ball in a championship ping-pong tournament. She darted from the motor boats to the swings, then the fire engines and cars. After the love bug, and the scrambler, she raced for the carousel. There were rope nets to climb on, shoots to slide down, and a sea of colored balls to dive into. It took three hours before total exhaustion set in. Mine, not hers.<\/p>\n

\u201cBria, you\u2019ve been on almost every ride here. Aren\u2019t you getting tired?\u201d I asked hopefully.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanna go on the parachute!\u201d she cried out.<\/p>\n

I squinted my eyes searching for anything that flew. \u201cYou mean the airplanes?\u201d She shook her head, no. \u201cThe helicopters?\u201d Again, no. \u201cThere are no parachutes here,\u201d I tried to explain.\u201cYes there are,\u201d she corrected and pointed over my shoulder. There, off in the distance, on the other side of the park in the adult section, it stood. The Parachute Jump. In an instant I was transported back with memories of my own childhood. I recalled how my brothers and I would stare up at the towering Parachute Jump, the biggest ride in Coney Island \u2013 even bigger than the old white-washed wooden roller coaster that whipped the screams out of its riders as it creaked and dipped through the park. We would watch people change to the size of ants as they sat below collapsed parachutes while thick metal cables slowly towed them up toward the heavens. They would pause for just a second, and then, they\u2019d fall back to earth. We vowed to one day mount that great ride, but we were just kids, content with the Tilt-A-Whirl and the Steeple Chase horses. The parachute jump would just have to wait. And so, while that great behemoth of metal waited for us to grow up, its bolts loosened, and its cable went slack, until one day, the parachute jump was no more. The tower still stands, silhouetted against an Atlantic sky, a reminder of a road never taken.<\/p>\n

\u201cCan we go on it?\u201d my granddaughter pleaded, pointing her tiny finger at the looming tower.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s not for you.\u201d I laughed. \u201cThat\u2019s a big ride…for big people.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLike you, Grandpa?\u201d she asked innocently.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, Like me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThen you can take me on it,\u201d she smiled and nodded.<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t tell you exactly what happened next. I did try to dissuade her. I told her it was too high. I told her she was too small. I told her I was too heavy. I told her everything except the truth \u2013that I was scared to death of heights. I get woozy standing on the top of a step ladder. What she was asking wasn\u2019t to fly a kite or have a catch. It wasn\u2019t joining her dolls at a tea party or riding a bike. She was asking me to ignore my greatest fear. I had to decide if I could overcome the terror I was feeling for my granddaughter\u2019s sake. I was still pondering that question as I was strapped into the seat next to her.<\/p>\n

As the cables began to strain and we headed skyward, I pulled my granddaughter closer and tried to steady my other shaking hand by gripping on to the guardrail for dear life. \u201cIsn\u2019t it pretty up here?\u201d I kept repeating as the colored lights from the midway began to get tiny.\u201d Yeah, pretty. Really pretty.\u201d My teeth began to chatter. \u201cYep, reallllly pretty.\u201d By now, I was so terrified I didn\u2019t even know what I was saying. We finally reached the top and stopped. There we were, hanging above the world. Waiting. At the top of the Parachute Jump. Just waiting. And as I tried to unclench my teeth, about to ask my granddaughter if she was okay…we dropped. Suddenly, sharply, instantly. We dropped! \u201cWhooooaaa!\u201d I screamed.  As much as I wanted to reassure her that we would be fine, I simply could not breathe. All that came out was \u201cWhooooaaa!\u201d After fifteen feet, the parachute kicked in and we began to gently float down. As I gasped for air, Bria looked at me, not with terror, but with a grin.<\/p>\n

\u201cGrandpa, I wasn\u2019t even scared. Let\u2019s do it again!\u201d As we reached the ground, the four-year-old sitting next to me fidgeted to get out of her seat as I tried to open my eyes, stop praying, and take a breath of relief. It was only then that I realized that I wasn\u2019t the one who took my granddaughter on the parachute jump at all. She was the one who took me!<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

And then one day it happened. I would be tested to see just how great a Grandpa I really was. I wasn\u2019t lucky enough to have had a real relationship […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_tec_requires_first_save":true,"_gspb_post_css":"","_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"_tribe_blocks_recurrence_rules":"","_tribe_blocks_recurrence_description":"","_tribe_blocks_recurrence_exclusions":"","footnotes":""},"essay_type":[46],"essay-category":[],"class_list":["post-16720","essay","type-essay","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","essay_type-features"],"blocksy_meta":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sasee.com\/ro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/essay\/16720","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sasee.com\/ro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/essay"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sasee.com\/ro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/essay"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sasee.com\/ro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sasee.com\/ro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16720"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sasee.com\/ro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/essay\/16720\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sasee.com\/ro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"essay_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sasee.com\/ro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/essay_type?post=16720"},{"taxonomy":"essay-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sasee.com\/ro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/essay-category?post=16720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}