Pimp Granddaddy

Like most people who grew up in the depression my grandparents were frugal.  They lived for the first years of their marriage in a duplex with my great-grandparents.  Now don't get me wrong, when I say frugal I do not mean cheap.  They definitely enjoyed having "things", but they knew that fun things came after everything else was paid for and there was money in the bank, or hidden under the stairs, for a rainy day.  My grandmother loved to tell the story of her Dodge Charger and her Corvette with the airbrushed butterfly on the hood. The Corvette got them involved with the Corvette club which I probably can't write about because I am trying to keep this blog rating PG-13 or under.  I will just post this picture of a Corvette club party.  Yep, that is my grandparents.

Need I say more

But this story isn't about those cars, this story is about the Cadillac.  I have mentioned before that my grandfather had poor health and was an early patient of open heart surgery.  People generally didn't live long after they had their chests cracked open in those days and I truly believe that knowing that he may not have long to live changed the way my grandfather lived the last 15 years or so of his life. Posted on his bathroom mirror was a note that said 3 things I want to do before I die.  I am not sure if this is exact, but it was something like this.

1. A few years of good living

2. See all the grandkids graduate from high school (when he wrote this Ashleigh hadn't been born yet)

3. One more nice car

He got the few years.  Graham was close to graduation.  Only one more thing to go, so he showed up one day with a pimped out white Cadillac with red velvet interior.  We were all kind of shocked. It was so white.  It was so red inside.  It was so "un-Grandpa", but you could tell that he really loved it.  We teased him and asked if he had practiced his "South Lorain Lean". (A common driving position in which the driver holds the wheel with his left hand while leaning to his right toward the passenger seat, usually bobbing his head or bumpin' with the beat. It's a pretty badass way to drive. Copied from Urban Dictionary- known in many places as the gangsta lean.  Snoop Dog never made it to South Lorain or he would have given it the correct name the "South Lorain Lean")  He was so proud driving it and would take the long way to get everywhere.  (oh wait, nevermind, he did that in all his cars).  My grandmother loved it too.  She didn't drive it until after he died.  He probably wouldn't have made it as long if she did.  I couldn't find a picture of Grandpa with it, but found this one of Grandma and me.

I know some people would say my grandfather's wish of this car was materialistic and that the money could have been spent better elsewhere, but that is what he wanted and if his desire for this car kept him around a little longer I think it was a really good thing to want.