"You're Gonna Miss Me When I'm Gone. Just You Watch." - Pt. 1

My Pops had a very funny if not cantankerous outlook on life. His friends nicknamed him "Grumpy" - a nickname he was actually quite proud of, as proven by his collection of Grumpy (of "The Seven Dwarfs" fame) t-shirts, hats and dolls - always worn or displayed with pride. Our sweet Amy called him "Uncle Grouch". My husband nicknamed him "The Crank" (who himself earned the moniker "Crank Jr.", courtesy of my mum).

His views were sometimes whimsical and mostly politically/socially incorrect. But without a doubt, he was usually right.

I can't remember what exactly the topic at hand was - probably something to do with the culinary delicacies of another country in relation to the common (Western world) household pet. You know the conversation - "In some parts of Asia, they eat Dog!!!!! The poor things!!!!" What a lot of people don't realize is somewhere in India they're pointing in disgust at a Westerner tourist saying the same thing in regard to our palatable love of the moo-cow. And I believe this was the point my Pops was trying to make, in the form of one of those "what would you do if you were stranded on a desert island" queries.

"You mean to tell me that if you were stranded on a desert island, just you and Petey (our grossly overweight Chihuahua - f.y.i.), you wouldn't give him a kiss goodbye then start roasting him???"

"No pop, don't think I could"

"You know that fat fuck'll eat you just as soon as look at ya?"

"Yeah pop, I know."

My Pops was also a die-hard Mets fan -our whole family are baseball's pariahs fans. Which of course means he's had his heart broken every season since 1987. And despite every yearly, fist-pumping promise to never watch another one of their games ever again, there he was, year after year, cursing at the latest game. One thing that probably irked him more is how the salaries went up, up, up while their averages went down, down, down. My father believed that if you were being paid 5 million dollars to hit a ball (or at least attempt to) and run around a field in circles, you better be playing .500 baseball. Or, as he explained it in "lay man's terms" - "Try this - go to work tomorrow and out of the 10 things you do, fuck up 8. See how long you still have a job"

My Pops also dreamed of a utopia . . . one of his own making. An island in the middle of nowhere. "Ron's Island". Which of course would be governed by "Ron's Laws", an almost communist form of "my way or the highway" government. First item on the agenda - EVERYONE speaks English. Second? Everyone's packing heat. His thought was, no criminal would be stupid enough to walk into a bank or store and hold it up if they knew everyone else was armed as well. And if they were that stupid, well, they'd be dead anyway, the victim of community justice. Sexual offenders, child abusers/murders and animal abusers? You get your own island - right over there. And you have to fend for yourself. We ain't feeding ya and you build your own damn huts out of coconut and bamboo. The Professor did it, you can too. And if you try to get to our island, we shoot you on the spot. Let's see, what else was there? Oh yeah! You have to take a driving test every time you renew your driver's licence - fail and you walk everywhere. Probably the one "law" that garnered the most eyeroll's (usually from my mum and I) and chuckles (from everyone else) was a moratorium on children, or breeding. It was an almost daily rant of his in regard his belief that the world (or at least America) was overpopulated. The economy was bad, gas prices were bad, we're at war and people are still bringing little "tax-suckers" (my Pops dysphemism for "children") into the world. Despite his many almost daily rants about anything and everything, it was always this one that would get my mum's head shaking the most. And, as I said, my Pop was usually right, there were a few times he was just off the wall which would lead my mum to exclaim (lovingly, of course) "You're such an asshole, you know that?" My Pops would just shake his head, return, hunched, back to his computer and mumble, "You're gonna miss me when I'm gone. Just you watch".

If only he knew how true this was . . . or how soon we'd find out for ourselves.