The Traveling Tepaskes: A Semi-Serious Travel Blog

When Marcus and I first started dating we had an opportunity to visit my paternal grandparents in Buffalo, NY. My grandma was pretty frail by this point but my grandpa, who would have been nearly 90 at the time, was still getting around and even driving. Driving with my 90-year-old grandpa was as white-knuckling an adventure as you might imagine it would be but that’s not the theme of this story. The theme of this story is that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

Bear with me.

My grandpa was born in Buffalo, NY in 1919 and attended Our Lady of Victory Basilica. It was a church he was very proud of (it really is very beautiful, check it out here if you’re curious) and it was one of the things he insisted on showing Marcus which is how we found ourselves driving with my 90-year-old grandpa to a Catholic church on a Friday afternoon.

As we pulled into the parking lot, grandpa commented on the number of cars that were there and Marcus, who had a Catholic coworker at the time, made a mental note that it was noon on Friday and Catholics hold noon services. Being that he was a newcomer to the family he decided to keep that information to himself.

Grandpa parked the car and the three of us climbed the steps into the church and entered the vestibule and into the nave where there was, indeed, a very well attended mass being held. At this point, Marcus or I could have said something but instead we regressed to perpetually embarrassed teenagers and kind of just shuffled behind Grandpa, looking down, trying desperately not to make eye contact with anyone and hoping praying that either the parishioners didn’t notice us (they did) or that grandpa would notice and lead us out of there (he did not).

Marcus and I felt the eyes of every parishioner as grandpa proudly, and with the stealth of a hard-of-hearing 90-year-old, pointed out the marble sculptures, the elaborate murals that adorned the domed ceilings, and the intricate stained-glass windows, his voice reverberating as loudly as that of the priest. He then took us behind the altar so that we could see more sculptures. I hardly need to remind you that mass is being held which meant all eyes are on the priest and now they’re also on the three randoms giving themselves a tour.

It may be at this point that you’re wondering where I’m going with this. Honestly, I don’t even know except it’s my favorite story to tell of my grandpa and I wanted to write it down for posterity. It has nothing to do with Singapore but, I think since we found out we were leaving, my desire to keep writing about Singapore has dwindled. Instead, I’ve taken to looking back at some of my drafts and am trying to clean those up and this story happened to be in there, tied to a post about my dad’s visit.

Luckily, my dad was far from being a 90-year-old when he came to Singapore. There were a few close calls, mostly involving roads and crossing and the time we somehow lost him while crossing a road. He also amused the girls and I by insisting that he must chat with the taxi drivers which was made even funnier by the fact he couldn’t understand their accent. I also had to whisper-yell at him a few times for saying wildly inappropriate things that I kind of don’t even want to write for fear he’ll come across as an ignorant American because he’s not, he’s just a Boomer.

Aside from all of that and referring to himself as a “honky” multiple times there were a few gems that came out of his visit that I texted to my sister and want to write down here so I can look back and note the time and date of when we should have started looking for that retirement home to put him in. I also told him I would be choosing one of the following to put on his epitaph one day: 

1. “You’ll have to pry my books out of my cold, dead hands before I’ll ever read on a tablet.” This one is my favorite and very epitaph-y.
2. “I’ll never get hearing aids!” Despite the fact he so very much needs hearing aids.
3. “Everyone’s trying to replace turkey for Thanksgiving!” This one was super confusing but when I told my sister this, she immediately ordered a tofurkey for Thanksgiving. 
4. “Advertisements are the bane of humanity.” Again, I have no idea what the source was for this consternation but I’m assuming it had to do with a link he was trying to read that was riddled with advertisements.  
5. *frustrated laughter* “Oh my God, even technology is woke!” 
6. “I hate English!” This was followed by a declaration that people who are native Chinese speakers must have been mad when they realized how easy English was.