So I remember my Grandpa full of a great humour, that sometimes would also upset others, although I couldn't understand why. Or, well, maybe I did, but I couldn't see why people were so stiff and unwilling to open their mouths and laugh at little funny things.
That was one thing he didn't lose till the end of his life, not with all the bitterness and heavy drinking of the last years with an ill wife - stuck to bed and also embittered by suffering - and with a household to take care of all by himself.
Still then, he would play his little tricks, and make innocent fun of everybody, and especially of himself!
I remember his laugh, which would start with a deep breathing out and continued with even more rough breathing out through rare, heavy "haha"s (only that, and would make me laugh too).
I also remember him loving to look neat. "Sint fudul, tataie!" ("I'm conceit, grandchild" in a very aproximate translation) he used to laugh while combing his hair to the back of his head with some special hair cream every morning. I didn't quite understand that word but in my mind it was pretty positive and funny, which still hasn't changed.
At events, he would put on these funny trousers, that were another amusing and puzzling invention to me. They were probably cavalry equipment, for riding, cause they were baggy puffed in the upper side and would get very narrow right under his knees, so they could get into high boots.
Some pairs of very impressive boots he had too, high and heavy (I would be allowed to bring them!) and shiny, that he preserved stuffed with fancy wooden shapers inside and he would cream and polish for hours every now and then.
Then the shaving... oh, that was a whole ritual. And my favourite moment of the week! I would leave any playing or doggy chase aside and I'd watch still and wide-eyed everything he's doing.
Always the same (that was somehow the fascination):
Now he's warming up water in the large kettle on the fire. Now he takes out the tin basin and puts it on its special stand in the sun, in the best angle and light. I bring out the special mirror, with a prop, which you can fix at a certain height, and the barber brush, and the soap. It's a very special soap, cilindrical and weird-smelling, for which he would travel long distances to get... But the razor, that one he brings himself. It's sharp, and very dangerous for kids.
Then comes the best moment! When he produces lots and lots of foam with his magic soap and warm water and puts it all over his face! Hahaha! He's the funniest in the world! And he knows that too. And then he suddenly forgets about everything and gets a very tight and concentrated expression as he starts shaving veeery slowly every bit of his face. Haha, that's even funnier! He's much too serious all of a sudden not to make you laugh. And then those grimaces and wry faces to get some certain portion of skin cleared out... Well of course my Dad would shave too, and he'd make almost the same faces, but his foam would come out of a can, already made and perfumed, what's the magic in that...
Grandpa stopped smoking the moment my Dad called to tell him the news about my birth. Cause he planned to be around for a while and watch me growing. He also planted a garden full of plum trees so I have enough fruit to eat and enough trees to climb if I want to do so (I would take more that full advantage of that some years later...). There were the sweetest, the most savourous, the most amazingly coloured, the most enormous sorts of plums I've ever seen (even to this day).
And Grandpa kept the best dogs too - perfectly behaved and trained and highly intelligent. I've learned valuable lessons from most of them...
Grandpa would build for me huge snowmen in the winter, and swings on tree branches in the spring, and would fill up barrels with water from the wheel fountain to dip in on the hot summer days, and would bring me corn puppets to play with in the autumn (all hair colors).
...And everybody was merry, no worries in the world... when I was small, and my Parents were young, and my Grandmother was healthy, and my Grandfather had dark thick hair, combed on the back with a special cream...
...To be continued someday
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