My Grandma and Father Joe

I am currently in western New York visiting family. I have seen over a dozen cousins (first cousins once removed and some second cousins), four great aunts/uncles, and some other assorted people.

However, the main part of the trip is to check on my grandma. She is 93 years old and having problems associated with getting older. Her memory is starting to fail. It seems like it is only short term things, but we are concerned it could become (or already is) more serious. We have to stop her from driving. A couple of weeks ago the priest at her church called us to say she almost ran someone over. My parents are trying to take her car away without directly saying "You can't drive." She lives alone, so we are telling her she needs to start wearing a medical alert pendent. This way, if she falls, she can use it to call for help. We set this up even before she told us that last month she fell and an ambulance had to take her to the emergency room. We want her to live in her house as long as possible. She has lived in the same house since she was 5 years old.

These are unfortunate things that happen as people get older. All we can do is deal with them.

However, during this trip I have seen something worse than getting older. It is being healthy and wasting your life. While my grandma is running around and doing as many things as her energy level and body will let her do, reasonably healthy and much younger people are sleeping the day away or spending it looking at little screens. There are people in the neighborhood who will sit on their porch and gossip all day.

My Grandpa Joe
Now I need a happier topic. I never knew my grandpa Joe. He died while my mom was a teenager. However, all accounts say he was a character. This is the story of how he got his nickname of "Father Joe."

One day my grandpa Joe and his friends went to a bar. The staff was not coming around to take their order. Since they were waiting a long time and were tired of being ignored, one of my grandpa's friends looked at him and said rather loudly "Father Joe, what will you be having?" When the staff overhead this, they thought he was a priest and immediately started paying attention to his group. After that the name stuck. Anytime he was with his friends, they called him Father Joe.

I recently saw the family of one my grandpa's best friends, Frank. His family would take trips with my grandpa and do a lot of things together. While Frank is deceased, his wife and all of his children knew my grandma, grandpa, and mom when they were growing up. All of these people think my grandpa is one of the greatest people ever. I heard more than once, "Father Joe was the best."

For example, Father Joe taught a couple of them how to drive. When they were old enough, their actual father Frank started to teach them how to drive. However, he did not have the patience to keep teaching them so he stopped. When Father Joe heard this, he took it upon himself to teach them. He did not give up until they could successfully drive.