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I remember my Grandpa… he would have been 84 today! The years have started to pile up over my life with him and my memories of him. Has it really been 15 years since I last saw him? One look in the mirror tells me it has. I fear there are things forgotten, and yet there so many things I still remember. The mind is a funny thing. We remember what we remember most often, and forget the subtleties which we infrequently or ever think about or speak of. I can tell you about my Grandpa, but I’ll probably tell you things that I usually tell people. Our minds are wired to remember by repetition, by habit. I’ll fail to mention what I have not thought about or spoken of very often, and thus over time I am destined to forget. Use it or lose it! The same goes for our memories.

However, just the other day I was at the grocery store where I was greeted by a memory I had “forgotten.” That’s another thing about the mind, the strangest things can reignite memories that have long since lost their path of synapses. I stood there at the freezer section where the ice-cream waited for me to choose; and there it was, Heavenly Hash! How long had it been since I had enjoyed a bowl of Heavenly Hash? I knew rather precisely. It had been no less than fifteen years. The only person I ever knew to spy out and bring home this delectable dessert was my dear old Grandpa. It was usually Rocky Road that he would bring home from the market down the street, where he would also pick up his prune juice… (gag!) But one Friday night, as we prepared to watch the newest episode of The X-files, I was greeted by a new flavor of ice-cream in the fridge. What in the world is Heavenly Hash? Little did I know that it was just about the best flavor I had ever tasted! Grandpa sure knew his ice-cream… hmm, hmm!

And so I remembered a long since forgotten memory of Grandpa. It’s so good to remember… It reminded me of other things. Though they lived in Chino, Grandma and Grandpa worked at their church in Norwalk, and most Friday afternoons I would leave school early to go home with them. Grandpa always tried to leave by 2pm in an attempt to beat the traffic. Oh, how he would fidget when the time began to slip past the hour. He was always ready early, but often he would have to wait on someone or something. Now days he could take the carpool lane all the way home from Norwalk, but not back then. It was always a long, slow drive, no matter which short-cut or alternate route we would take-- and believe me he knew them all and tried them all. Sometimes we would get going late, and so we would stop off at a restaurant along the way. Other times we would make it home around 3pm, get the yard mowed and edged (I mowed and he took care of the edging), and then we would go out to eat. But sometimes Grandpa barbequed… Oh, how I miss that! He could grill a steak like nobody’s business, and his famous chicken with green peppers was just the best! And Grandpa always had ice-cream in the fridge. And sometimes it was Heavenly Hash! I loved spending time at their house!

But it seems that was a lifetime ago. I guess it was. The last time I saw him I was eighteen, a freshman in college. Now I’m thirty-three, with a wife and three kids, and my oldest is already in the sixth grade! Time goes by so fast, too fast. But whenever I have a bowl of Heavenly Hash or hear the opening music to The X-files, I’m right there with him, sitting next to Grandpa.