Monday, June 1, 2009

Niagara Falls, Old Timey

My mother gave me a slew of photographs that were taken by her father. Among them was this shot at Niagara Falls, in front of the Bridal Falls, I believe. There's no longer a walkway there, probably for insurance reasons. Insurance reasons is nothing but a killjoy, if you ask me.
I'm guessing that this would've been in the late 1920s, judging from the pictures that have my grandfather and his car in them. Probably right before the stock market crashed and ushered in the Great Depression. He would've been a late teen, or possibly twenty. Kaufman, my grandfather, was quite a character. He said whatever he was thinking, come hell or high water. Maybe he had Tourrettes, who knows. Probably he had it, what with the facial tics and clicking sounds he made all of the time. Still, he loved his wife and his daughters to no end, and they loved him in return. He thought that my grandmother was the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen and he'd tell the story over and over of how he'd first spotted her when they were children. He was at his Aunt's house in Renfrew and he saw a little Italian girl playing in the yard across the street. He said that he never forgot her and when they met years later and he made the connection of who she was, he pursued her like the end of times. They were married for 30yrs before grandma died of cancer, and he never remarried. He kept pictures of her all over his place, and he had three subsrciptions to Playboy (he gave one to the garbage man, one to my cousin, and the other he kept). Must've worked for him because he outlived her by almost forty years.
Heh, Kaufman, he told me on my 18th birthday that if I didn't find a fellow to settle down with I'd be an old maid. I laughed and said that there are worse things.

2 comments:

drollgirl said...

he sounds like such a great guy, except for the old maid comment! ha! i seem to recall my mother telling me when i was 18 that i needed to start looking for a husband. well i am 38 and still unmarried. whatever!

jennifer from pittsburgh said...

I'm a lesbian and divorced, so there you go ;) Just looking forward to marrying MK since she foolishly agreed :D