Charlie and I got a nice text message from our grandson Craig today thanking us for our contributions to his life thus far.
What a great guy he’s turned out to be!
Craig is 20 now, is going to junior college, working part-time, and keeping out of trouble. A while back it appeared that he may be going into the Navy this year, but that plan may be on hold because I haven’t heard any mention of it lately. Whether it’s serving his country or pursuing a college degree, I’m sure he will make the right decision and be all he can be.
I have a special bond with Craig Jr., as I was present in the delivery room when he was hatched and was subsequently named after me. Both his parents worked at the time, so Charlie and I cared for the little tyke during the workday at our house in Bear Creek (Murrieta, California). Thus, we were especially close to Craig during his first five years, and were honored to feed him, change his diapers, help him learn how to talk, watch SpongeBob Squarepants with him for hours, and probably teach him some bad habits, as well.
I remember the occasion when little Craig took his first steps. Charlie and I were enjoying the lad toddling around in our living room when I got the idea to tempt him with something (I think it was food or a toy). Anyway, he eventually got up on his feet and walked several steps to his prize. We were surprised, as were his parents, because it was unexpected.
I taught my namesake how to swim in the neighborhood pool, which was a few hundred yards from our home in Bear Creek. It was a small pool, perhaps 3 foot deep in the shallow end and eight feet in the deep end. We started by me piggy-backing Craig around in the water, then later got him to hold onto the side by himself, then having him submerge and hold his breath, then having him open his eyes under water, then retrieving items off the bottom, then learning how to float, and finally teaching him a few strokes. Eventually, he learned how to jump into the water, then dive, and later how to make it across the pool on his own. He was a natural. (On one visit to the pool, Craig was diving and retrieving items off the bottom when he/I spotted something odd. Upon examination of the brown/slippery object, I determined that it was a turd left by some infant who was not being properly supervised. Ugh… that was the last time that we swam in that pool!)
As Craig got older, and we’d travel in the car to various places together, I would be subject to a lot of his chatter from his car seat behind me. He was learning the names of things, colors, sounds, etc., and was evidently developing his own opinions. One time we had just passed a hideous car (I had just thought to myself, “What idiot in Detroit came up with that design!) when little 4-year-old Craig blurted out, “That car’s ugly, Grandpa”. That’s when I knew that the little creature was named appropriately.
Speaking of that, Craig knew me as “Grandpa” in his early years, not knowing that we shared the same first name. I forget exactly how it went down, but one day in the car I told him that my name, too, was Craig. He got instantaneously livid and scolded me, “No, my name is Craig, you’re Grandpa!!!” HaHa.
Craig Jr. and I have had some adventures together.
Early on, the two of us used to go to amusement parks together. Disneyland and Knotts Berry Farm were our favorites. (I remember one time that Craig fell into a large water fountain at Knott’s when he was goofing off. He had to walk around the park in wet clothes, ha ha.) We also would hit the Fair circuit each year, enjoying the L.A. County Fair, the Orange County Fair, and the Del Mar (San Diego) Fair, with most of our attention paid to the large carnival areas there. (Once we attended the Del Mar Fair with my brother Terry and his granddaughter Fiona who was about Craig’s age. The two young kids had a ball in the carnival area, enjoying one of the “thrill” rides a dozen times straight because it was mid-week and there was no one in line.)
Charlie and I took Craig to the beach for the first time when he was about this age. We stayed for a week at a friend’s beach house right adjacent to Buccaneer Beach in Oceanside. Craig loved it there and enjoyed frolicking in the sand and looking out at the big, blue sea. (Years later, when we got into RV’ing, we made Paradise By The Sea RV Resort, near Buccaneer Beach, one of our regular stops on the annual road trip. We’d stay there a month and have Craig and his family dog sit for us while we visited friends in Murrieta. They loved that place and had some great family times there.)
Craig and I took a short vacation one year up to Northern California to visit my sister Claudia, to do some camping in the redwoods, and to enjoy the Santa Cruz boardwalk/amusement park where I had spent some of my youth. Craig really enjoyed Claudia’s house, particularly the slot machine and the pinball machine. The next day we spent a few hours doing the carnival rides at the Santa Cruz boardwalk before heading into the Henry Cowell Redwoods to tent camp for the night.
Unfortunately, Craig must have picked up some cooties at the boardwalk, because in the middle of the night he awoke with severe stomach pains and diarrhea. We had to quickly break camp, and flee 300 miles south toward home. Poor little Craig crapped all the way to San Luis Obispo… what a mess!… before finally falling to sleep. I will always remember that “Highway 101 Crapapalooza” and little Craig telling me, “It’s going to be okay, Grandpa”, as I was in a state of near panic.
I’m not sure, but I think I taught Craig how to ride a bike. I absolutely know that I taught him how to ride a horse, or at least sit on one and parade around a corral. That was back in my “equestrian” period, when I did a lot of stuff with Ed Metzler’s horses and, later, my own horse “Louie”.
We took Craig to Montessori Pre-School when he was 4. I would drive him down there and drop him off, and the little guy absolutely loved it. He made friends, did crafts indoors, and played outside in the playground area with his buddies. Eventually, he reached kindergarten age, and I took him to his first day there. It was the ending of an era, as Craig’s family moved to the Upland, California area to live temporarily with his Mom’s parents.
Craig was lucky to get two very good sets of grandparents, as his Mom and Dad had economic problems at that time. His grandparents Lou and Rendi had a huge house in the Rancho Cucamonga area and were able to fit Craig’s family and some of his relatives in there all at once. It was a tight fit, but they made it work. Needless to say, Craig was blessed with good parents, too. It is no accident that Craig, his brother Joshua, and sister Jessica have turned out to be intelligent, fun-loving, and caring individuals who are excelling at whatever they put their minds to. As the saying goes, “It takes a village…”.
In better times, when Craig was younger, his parents were able to take one of those 3-day Mexican cruises with his brother Josh and sister Jessica. He never forgot that, and when we later asked him what we could get him for his tenth birthday, he responded, “Take me on a cruise!” We did. It was a Holland-America 7-day cruise out of Los Angeles to Cabo San Lucas, Mazatlan, and Puerto Vallarta. Craig loved it, particularly the youth activities that they had every day. He made friends and spent most of his time onboard with them.
That particular cruise was unusual because we spent two nights in Puerto Vallarta, allowing Craig and I to do the “Great Adventure” tour. It began at the dock, where we boarded a speedy pontoon boat that raced across the Bay of Banderas to another dock, where we boarded what looked like an Army truck. That vehicle took us up into the coastal mountains where we disembarked and climbed onto donkeys, which took us up to the top of the mountains. There, we were instructed how to zip line safely, and we proceeded to zip down the mountain in maybe a dozen steps. At one point, we had to rappel down a 100’ waterfall, and at another point we had to rappel straight down from a huge tree to the ground. Craig was brave, followed directions, and had a great time that day. I was so proud of him.
We also took Craig to the big Bingo game onboard. There were a lot of players and the cash jackpots for each game were nice. I bought some game cards and gave one to Craig to play. Darn if that little guy didn’t win one game worth $250 (as I recall). Immediately the little guy said, “Don’t tell my parents ’cause I want to buy something!” We said, “Sure”. The next day we went to play again. I asked Craig if he wanted to use some of his money to buy some Bingo cards and he said, “No way, I’m keeping this money!” He was a pretty smart guy even at that age.
Craig was adventurous, too. On that cruise, at at a very swank restaurant overlooking Puerto Vallarta, he experimented with lots of foods that he’d never tried before, like escargot and the like. He gobbled it up.
At some point, when Craig was in middle school (I think), the living accommodations for his family took another turn, as they had to leave his grandparents home in Rancho Cucamonga. Charlie and I helped out by allowing his parents to live in our motorhome at Lake Elsinore while Craig and sister Jessica stayed at our house. Jessica was in high school (at Murrieta Valley H.S.) and Craig was in middle school, right next door to the high school. I don’t remember how long the two of them lived with us, but it was good times. The both of them were good students; in fact, Jessica was an academic star, really putting in the work and helping Craig out with his studies as well.
When Craig was about 14, he and I did a road trip up to Merced, California (about 300 miles) to check out a backyard breeder who had a couple of Boston Terrier puppies for sale. We had two Bostons at the time, but they were getting older and it was Charlie’s and my opinion that we needed to bring another one onboard so that it could be trained by our wonderful dogs. Anyway, Craig and I saw the two puppies and picked the female (Charlie’s preference) who was full of energy. Craig cuddled that teeny puppy in his hands all the way back to Southern California. We named her “Baby”, as in Booger’s Baby, because our beloved Booger had never borne any children of her own.
The Murrieta Valley School District was highly rated, as was the high school. Even after Craig’s family relocated to Wildomar (just south of Murrieta), Craig and Jessica were able to stay in the school district because they gave our Bear Creek address as their own. (We did the same favor for one of Charlie’s bookkeeping clients, who daughter Alexis also benefitted from our Murrieta address.) Jessica graduated before Alexis, and she was a 4.2 GPA student. Alexis was also an academic star who the H.S. principal took, with other top students, to the East Coast to check out possible colleges. In a strange twist of fate, we sold our home in Bear Creek to… the principal of the high school! He later received MVHS correspondence addressed to his new home in the names of Jessica, Alexis, and Craig. So, he then realized what kind of skullduggery had been going on for years. But he was cool about it, because all three of the illegal students had been (and were, in Craig’s case) top notch students. It remained a secret that no one else need know about.
We flew Craig up to Montana several years ago to spend some of our Summer vacation with us in the motorhome. Some of the highlights included a hike to the Stone Chalet in Glacier National Park and a jet boat ride on the Rogue River out of Gold Beach, Oregon. The lowlight of the trip was the leaky motorhome during a spell of bad weather in Coos Bay, Oregon. Thank goodness Craig was there, because he helped me fashion some temporary rigging on the RV roof to get us through the rainy period.
We live in Mesquite, Nevada now and Craig still resides in Southern California. His plans seem to be in flux right now, as he seems to be weighing college vs. military service. He’s going to be successful in whatever he does, so I’m not concerned about the choice he makes.
I’m very proud of him and am honored to have contributed positively to his development. And, I’ve really enjoyed spending time with him over the years because he’s such a good guy.
Hopefully, there will be more good times for us in the future.