A TATTERDEMALION TRAIN
You can't always find a silver lining in London, sometimes you have to create it yourself. That's why my Granddad used to hand my mother a broom and say: "Here's the broom go sweep the fog away." I have two black and white snapshots of Granddad; in one he stands by a moving van with wooden wheels; in the other he strikes a comical sailor pose. Granddad was a mover by day; by night a tap dancer, performing vaudeville
In the early Sixties, Nanny and Granddad left London's East End and settled in Timmins, a mining town in Northern Ontario. They came to visit us in Milton one summer; one of the few times I saw them. I dandled on Granddad's knee on the verandah as he joked around. Some dandelion seeds floated by and he called them, "Paratroopers."
The war had left a deep impression on Granddad, but he tried not to let it show. I asked my mother why his eyes looked away. She said it was 'shell shock' from the trenches. Nanny and Granddad gave me a cardboard cutout of Buckingham Palace. I lined up the miniature guardsmen in the car's rear window as we headed to the beach. Granddad struck the pose of a sailor and Mom took the shot with her Brownie camera.
Before they left we put a thick plank in the backyard for Granddad to do his train dance. The dance mimicked a locomotive, starting slowly; picking up speed as he roared down the track with his heavy brogues a blur. Not long after they left I heard my mother say, "He has a heart the size of London. Whenever I was sad he'd hand me a broom and say..." My mother had learned how to cut through clouds herself; she kept a stiff upper lip.
We made the long trip north and parked by the red brick hospital. Everyone went in except for me and my brother, Kim. They had told us that Granddad was dying of cancer. "It's better if you remember him the way he was."
When we returned I moved the plank and saw that the grass beneath had turned white. No one had touched the plank since hearing the bad news. In the silence Dandelions stood like the Queens guardsmen with their fur hats. The spheres were like another world. A breeze blew the mane off a dandelion and I thought of what Granddad had said: "Here's the broom, go sweep away the fog."
Grandpa had shell shock from World War One
Yet his heart was the size of London
He did a little soft shoe like a raggedy rogue
One last time made pistons of his brogues
A gentle wind could shake up your world
When dandelions turn to gray
Just think of Grandpa Sweeping the fog away
He gave me a model of Buckingham Palace
Cardboard guardsmen assembled in a row
He was undaunted with an "about face"
Dandelion regiments lost their yellow
A gentle wind could shake up your world...
I was just a child dandling on his knees
As dandelion paratroopers floated on the breeze
I didn't get to see him those days were too gray
Grandpa said "Here's the broom go sweep the fog away."
A gentle wind could shake up your world...
©1997 Stefan des Lauriers