A Birthday
Today would have been John L. Jones’s 86th birthday. He was my grandfather. He died on August 24.
Grandpa taught me many things. I took some of those things to heart, and I learned to do them so well that I don’t even know I’m doing them. Others, I learned to avoid. Still others, I continue to strive to incorporate into my life.
How to Take a Shower
Grandpa taught me how to take a shower. First, you turn on the water just long enough to get yourself wet. Then you turn off the water and soap up, cleaning yourself thoroughly. When you put shampoo in your hair, close your eyes gently — if you squeeze them shut tightly, the shampoo will sting your eyes. When you’re all soaped up, turn on the water just long enough to rinse yourself. Before you get out of the shower, wipe down the walls with a squeegee.
Only much later in life did I learn that this type of shower is called a “Navy shower.” You see, the way Grandpa explained it, this was not some unusual way to take a shower. It was the only way to take a shower. Clever marketing.
I tried it, Grandpa, I really did. I just can’t do it. Taking a shower like that is miserable. I have managed to figure out how to wash my hair without getting soap in my eyes, but that’s about it. I just can’t bring myself to spend less than ten minutes under that hot, relaxing, soothing stream of (did I mention hot?) water. I do think of you every single time I’m standing there, though. So if that’s immortality, grab it. It might be the best kind.
How to Tell a Story
Grandpa passed on to me, through my father, a propensity to tell the long version of any story. As far as we’re concerned, there is no short version. Or worse, we’re telling the short version. I think of him any time I stop myself from telling the extra long version that I really want to tell and preface the shortest possible version I can think of with “OK, here’s the short version.” The short version is always two or three times longer than it needs to be, and I’ve got a relatively mild case of it.
The root of the problem is that we want you to know all of the background information so that you can appreciate the story in all of its fullness. The symptom of the problem is that you appreciate the story less after we’ve made you sit through all of the preambles, prefaces, and prologues. We do it because we love you; does that make it any more tolerable?
The women in our family (Hi, Mom! Stop rolling your eyes, Julie!) have gotten used to it, in the same way that you get used to a sharp rock in your shoe when you’re carrying two heavy bags of groceries down a set of slippery stairs in the dark.
How to Handle Jehovah’s Witnesses
This is the audio from Grandpa’s memorial service: John L. Jones Memorial. It’s a downloadable (42 MB) MP3 file that you can play on your computer or iPod. (You might need to right-click or ctrl-click and choose Save Link As to save the file on your computer.) The story starts at 22:55.
Those of you who did not know Grandpa and might not want to hear the whole service should at least download and listen to his grandson (my cousin) Andrew Allport’s wonderful rendition of a Greg Brown song called Further In. How he made it all the way through, I will never know. It starts at 8:50 in the above file, or you can download the song by itself here. I’ve been playing it again and again. It always surprises Julie to see me cry.
Four Joneses (John, Tom, Chris, and Sylvan). November 2006.