Bulldogs, snakes and me
by Matt Worley

It was Super Tuesday--or at least this year's equivalent. We had the State of the Union Address and the Money Verdict from the second O.J. trial all bundled up for prime time. I was skipping these events to meet a friend for beer and conversation. It turns out that he was interested in seeing the O.J. verdict (truthfully, I lost most of my passion for this story when O.J. didn't kill himself in the white Bronco as they inched down California highways), so we switched to a bar with a TV. As it turns out, we couldn't hear the what the guy on Sportscenter was saying anyway, but there were more college co-eds than the first bar, so our overall view was improved nonetheless.

I got home reeking of smoke and realized my sore throat was getting way out of hand. My brother was silent and staring at the TV.

"Dad called. Grandpa was in an accident and they don't think he'll make it through the night. They've already taken out one kidney."

There was a bit of conversation after that. I found out the verdict, a few more details, but mostly I paced back and forth and repeated, "I've got to take a shower." Eventually I did that, mostly standing under the hot water and thinking about what might happen and what needed to be done. I was in there for about ten minutes, not really mustering up much energy to clean myself, but at least I was under the water. Walking out of the bathroom was a lot like walking in the house a half hour earlier.

"Mom called. It's all over. She's gonna call tomorrow when she knows more."

By the time we got to Kansas for the memorial service, I'd lost my voice to the oncoming cold. Instead of being able to share in memories with our extended family, I was the sad mime with a bad routine of pointing and half smiles. Here is what I couldn't say:

Sometime before the age of five I was visiting my grandparents by myself during the winter. Grandpa took me to a Kansas State men's basketball game. While he kept the score on his program with 1s, 2s, slashes and boxes, I made little patterns and cartoons in any available white space. It was a very entertaining game. A few days later, there was another game, and I wanted to go again. Since they only had two tickets and Grandma wanted to come as well this time, my Grandpa devised a plan. When we got near the field house, Grandpa picked me up in his arms (even though I thought I was much to old for this type of coddling) and evened the tickets so the fact that there were only two was not easily recognized. Grandma waved at an unseen person in front of us and rushed through the line without giving a glance to the ticket taker. Grandpa handed the tickets to the young man and said nothing. During the entire game, I was thinking about how we all got in with only two tickets rather than actually paying attention to the play. It was the coolest move I've ever seen someone execute.

Our vacations at Grandpa and Grandma Heyne's house were frustrating as kids. We thought the word "vacation" meant we didn't have to do anything. Or maybe it was just an ongoing fantasy in our heads. Someday we'd be able to go to their house without picking up leaves and sticks, cutting the grass, washing windows, working in the garden, shelling corn, shoveling manure--at their house the only time one could sit around was at night after dinner.

The best Fourth of July's we ever had were always at Grandpa and Grandma's because fireworks were allowed (except the ever-evil bottle rockets). We would spend hours popping firecrackers from under cans and off various places on the laundry line. The cracks in the cement would make "tomatoes" spin and jump unpredictably. The last time I remember being at their house was a Fourth of July holiday in the early 90s. We walked around town after our own celebration, ended up at a pool hall until late in the night and had to wake up Grandpa to let us back in the house at three in the morning.

Grandpa always sent us $10 on our birthday with a card that usually had a few lines of wisdom attached. Since my birthday is so close to Christmas, comments usually related to gifts or letters from that holiday. I gave them a copy of a magazine that printed a poem of mine one year. The birthday after that, I got the comment, "I am not a fan of your writing." A lot of people tried to soften this one up for me, but I ended up deciding that if there was anyone I had to convince about the validity of my craft, it was Grandpa. A few years later he wrote, "You are a good writer, I just don't appreciate the subject matter." I got my birthday card from him this year a day before he died. Nothing prophetic in the note, just something about the weather and quarter centuries. Hours before his accident I cashed the check, wrote a thank you letter, sealed and stamped the envelope and set it on my scanner to send off the next day.

I saw Grandpa Heyne for the last time during a trip last October to visit my parents. We were sitting around and listening to his sisters tell stories of when they were all kids. Neither of us said much, just laughing inwardly about the memories. He seemed to be very content about being able to relax a bit, let his sisters do the talking, and enjoy everyone's company. I thought it was great that after years of seeing him work and work and work that he was able to just enjoy life through observation for a while. And I like my final mental image of him: sitting comfortably in a chair at his sister's house, smiling slightly to a story about how he was pretty much the same at four years old as he was at 84.

Dr. Elmer G. Heyne was a wheat and popcorn geneticist, a professor, a husband, father and grandfather. In 1977 he introduced Newton Wheat (named for the location it was developed), a strain that for a time during the 80s was planted in more than 40% of the wheat fields of Kansas. Matt Worley is the fourth grandchild of ten.

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