Grandpa never told me he loved me...

My first memories of Grandpa are from when I was perhaps 5 or 6 years old.  He was a chicken farmer and had several chicken coops with several hundred chickens.  He got up every morning before dawn to prepare their food and then take it to the feed troughs in the coops.  I would love to get up shortly after he left his bedroom to "help" him.  His house was an older two-story home with an attic and basement.  The kind of house that scary movies are made of.  But I don't remember ever being afraid of the house. 

There were two ways to meet up with Grandpa in the feed house where he was preparing the chickens' morning meal.  One was to walk through the kitchen and down some very long, steep stairs; the other was to walk down some very steep, crooked, loose stairs to the basement, walk through the dark basement, and then walk up a couple of steps to get outside.  I almost always chose the latter.  This was because, another man lived in the house.  He was my Grandpa's brother-in-law.  He was a retired Hudson River riverboat captain, who got up early and sat in the kitchen by the window drinking coffee or tea.  I was afraid of him, and would try to avoid him if at all possible...especially in the dim light of early morning.

The cellar was a little scary too.  In fact, after 60 years I still dream about it from time to time.  There was a large, scary furnace, cisterns and the work area where Grandpa candled and sorted eggs.

When I finally got to Grandpa, he showed me how to find the right string to open the burlap feed sacks (something I still can't do) and prepare the various feed mixtures for the chickens.  In colder months, he would mix hot water in the feed because it was better for the hens. Then, he would let me "help" him carry the buckets of feed to be dumped into the feeding troughs.  He loved those chickens and would keep them calm when we walked about by talking gently to them as we dumped the feed.  After we cleaned up the buckets, Grandpa and I would go back to the coops to collect eggs.  He told me all about how chickens make and lay eggs. He told me about how they squawk when laying an egg, and would always chuckle when he heard one lay an egg.  When we fed the chickens in the evening, he told me about how they all knew when it was time to roost and would fly up to the roosting bars for the night. It was fun to watch them roost.  I learned a lot about chickens and life when I helped Grandpa.

Many years later, when I was a freshman in college, Grandpa wrote me a letter because he very happy that I had been chosen to sing in the men's glee club.  He himself was a wonderful singer, although he was a bass and I was a first tenor.  He admonished me to be a good boy, but to also have a lot of fun.  He closed by signing "your old pal, Grandpa."  A few months later he died.
 
Unlike today when every encounter and phone call ends with a sing-song, meaningless "Love you, honey," Grandpa never told me he loved me...he didn't have to...he just did...and I knew it.