What's that again?

My grandfather has been in town for the last two days visiting my sister and me. He has Alzheimer and is losing it a little. This means that he is able to talk for hours about his career as a doctor or tell funny antidotes about going on blind dates in college. The giveaway is that in-between his talking, he will ask me where I teach, how many students I have, and what subject do I teach, several times over and over again. I’ve gotten used to this, and really do love spending time with him. I’m not sure if it is the disease or old age, but my once regal grandfather known to everyone as either Bishop Graves or Doctor Graves has lost his filter for what is socially acceptable and what isn’t.

Example #1- We are sitting at dinner in a fancy restaurant in Park City and there are lots of people within earshot. My grandfather launches into one of his random rants about society and says, “When I grew up we didn’t have any queers; we had boys called sissies. A sissy was just a boy that had a really overbearing mother and didn’t play ball with the rest of us. The sissies back then just wound up getting married to someone like their moms. I don’t understand all these queers nowadays. It seems like they just want the attention.” While this is taking place, Laura and I are trying to make him change the subject and looking around to see if anyone overheard him. We have the same reaction when he starts talking about “colored” people.

Example #2- We are playing miniature golf up at the Park City resort. My grandfather says he going to find a bathroom and starts walking off behind the family maze, another attraction. My sister Laura tries to tell him where the bathrooms are on the other side of the resort. My grandfather calmly replies, “I’m pretty sure I can find one back here.” It is hard to describe the horror and shock that overcame us when we both realized that my grandfather was going to pee right behind the family maze. The only thing worse was when we realized that the mountain biking trail came out right behind him, so lots of other people got to share in our shock and disbelief.