yes, its true

My Grandfather


Something I’ll always remember is the smile that came upon my grandpa’s face in the morning, in the afternoon, and at night. His smile brightened up a dark room and made everybody smile back, no matter what kind of day you were having. I can say one thing though, he was for sure the most handsome man I’ve ever seen, and if I could play out my future I would definitely have a man by my side like my grandpa. I swear he became better looking the more he aged, and let’s just say, he was already a stud in his early 20’s when he married my beautiful grandmother.

My grandfather grew up in Ireland, and defiantly loved his heritage. St. Patrick’s Day was my favorite Holiday because that day made him so happy, which made everybody so happy. His happiness on that day was contagious. On St. Patrick’s Day, we would all go over to my grandparent’s house, and the whole house would be decorated with clovers, leprechauns, and anything green. We would eat some ham and cabbage and usually be entertained by the beauty of my grandpa’s voice as he imitated the famous Frank Sinatra and let me tell you, my grandfather’s voice surpassed Mr. Sinatra, and if you would have heard it, you would have thought that Sinatra was trying to sing like the fabulous Dermott McDermott. Dermott McDermott, Interesting name. I know that most people who find out that my grandpa’s name is Dermott McDermott are really surprised, but honestly if it was anything different, I don’t know what my grandmother would call him. I couldn’t imagine not hearing my grandmother holler at him, “DERMM!”
It just wouldn’t be the same.

My grandpa has the sense of humor that anybody would dream to have. He was absolutely hilarious and he kept his humor through out the many bad times he went through in the hospital. He went through multiple major surgeries, and walked out laughing each time. My grandpa was amazing. He survived so many things, that nobody thought he would, but there was some sort of spirit always looking over him and it kept him going, kept him holding on, until god needed his happiness in heaven on June 6th 2006. Now he watches over my grandmother, and all of his children and grandchildren in heaven, and I can guarantee he is smiling the whole time.

My Grandfather’s Secret

Most people think that St. Patrick’s Day symbolizes the day St. Patrick rushed all the snakes out of Ireland, which may be true, but my grandfather has more to do with it then anyone thinks.

One thing I found out late in my adolescence was the truth behind my grandfather. I should have known sooner by the way he loved his Irish heritage, but it didn’t become clear to me until one raining morning in March. Well, it was raining, and then the sun came up, and it was still raining. I had slept over my grandparent’s house that night, and I woke up to a bright yellow sky, with a rainbow skipping upon it. I looked out of my window to admire the beauty, when I saw my grandpa sneak out the backdoor, on to the patio, and off into the woods that was behind their house. I never seen my grandfather move that fast, and I figured that their must be something strange going on, so I slipped on my robe, and took off after him. Before I walked out the patio door, I realized that the rainbow ended somewhere near the back of the woods. My grandfather must have been following it. I walked out the door, and followed behind him without him knowing. Every time I would accidentally make a branch break, my grandfather would fling around to look to see what it was that made the noise. Luckily before he ever saw me, I was able to dive behind a tree. When he looked back the second time, I could have sworn that my grandfather’s face looked younger, and more playful. Jolly if you like. I kept following him, and I stayed about 10 feet behind him. My grandfather began to pick up speed, and began to prance through the woods. I picked up speed to follow him. My grandfather had difficulty walking back at home, and now he was skipping and jumping, and spinning through the air, while he jumped over logs and torn down tree trunks. What had come over my grandfather? I had no idea, but I did know that we had to be about a mile into the woods at this point. My grandfather then suddenly stopped in his tracks, and from beyond him I could see the brightest yellow color, reflecting on to the tree around him. I looked up, and the rainbow had fallen in the dirt, and every color was reflecting on to the tree branches above. I looked back down to see what my grandfather’s next move was, but he was gone. He was nowhere insight. I walked closer to the trees where all the colors had been illuminated, and I saw it. The rainbows end, and a black rusty pot. Within the pot, was hundreds and hundreds of medium sized coins, coins made out of gold. Was this some sort of joke? Did my grandpa know that I would follow him here? Did he set this up? Right in the middle of my thought, I felt a tug on my robe. I quickly turned around, and nobody was there. I looked back to where the rainbow stopped, and felt somebody whisper in my ear. Although I couldn’t make up what was said, I turned around quickly, looking in every direction, and once again, nobody was there. At this point, I had no idea what was going on. I called for my grandfather. “Grandpa…!!” Shortly after the echo of the woods carried his name, I heard the response, it sounded like my grandpa, but it was a little more high pitch. “Yes, me Darling?” The voice came from above me. When I looked above, I saw a pair of pointed shoes hanging from a thick tree branch with a pair of legs attached above them. The shoes were brown and pointy, and the legs attached were covered with knee high socks of green and white. “Grandpa, is that you?” I asked in a very confused tone. “Yes, me Darling.” As he finished his sentence he jumped down from the tree and stood directly in front of me about 3 feet high. It looked like my grandpa, but 30 years younger, and with much more rosy cheeks. He was dressed in a green overcoat that had gold buttons holding it together in the middle. It was definitely my grandfather, just a much shorter, greener, younger, and jollier man. I thought to myself, “My grandpa is a..” My grandpa jumped up in front of me, and yelled “Leprechaun!” I started laughing, and my grandfather grabbed both of my hands, pulled me down to his level, and we started dancing around the pot of gold. He sat me down, and began telling me stories of his younger days in Ireland, and how he is responsible for his favorite holiday, St. Patrick’s Day.


The Story behind St. Patrick’s Day

I found out that day that he was the mischievous leprechaun that caused the snakes to invade Ireland. According to my grandfather, it turns out that St. Patrick wasn’t the greatest guy in the world. I guess he was greedy. One morning, about 60 years ago, St. Patrick came across my grandfather’s gold. (My grandfather had hidden it within a tree a couple miles south of the Blarney Stone.) St. Patrick was a lumberjack that came across my grandfather’s gold when he chopped down the tree that the gold was hidden in. Thrilled with his find, St. Patrick decided to take the gold, and not let anybody know about it. St. Patrick dropped his saw, quit his job on the spot, and skipped across the woods back towards his house. By the time St. Patrick reached his house, My grandfather found out what had happened to his gold, and he skipped off to St. Patrick’s house. My grandfather was a happy go lucky man, just as I knew him, and he just wanted his gold back. The legend has it that the only way you can receive some of the leprechaun’s gold, is if you lend a helping hand to a leprechaun. St. Patrick didn’t do this, and that is why my grandfather went to get his gold back. St. Patrick was a strong believer in leprechauns, and he knew that if the gold was truly the gold of a leprechaun, that he has to be prepared to save it from getting it stolen back. St. Patrick set up leprechaun traps all around his house. One thing St. Patrick missed about trapping leprechauns was that in order to keep a leprechaun in a trap, you have to place a four leaf clover upon the trap. A four leaf clover blocks the mischievous magic of a leprechaun. Well anyways, my grandfather stumbled into a trap, which angered him, and he screamed and hollered until St. Patrick came outside to see him. As rumor has it, leprechauns are always deceiving and mischievous creatures, but that’s only the case, if somebody traps them. My grandpa mischievously offered St. Patrick one wish, but only if he would kindly give him his gold back. St. Patrick agreed right away, and he thought about wishing for all the money in the world, and imagined the rattling of all the change in his pocket. The word rattling is where he thought wrong, and my grandpa granted him a wish, that included the word rattling. My grandpa pranced into the woods with his gold, and chanted “If you trap a leprechaun, you will be made fool”. As my Grandpa’s voice disappeared within the woods, rattlesnakes began slithering out of St. Patrick’s pockets. My grandpa thought there wasn’t any better rattling then the rattling of rattlesnakes. St. Patrick new that the magic of a leprechaun only worked in Ireland, so he ran as fast as he could to the ocean and jumped in. So the story of St. Patrick is half true, St. Patrick did lead all the snakes out of Ireland, but my grandpa is the one responsible for why St. Patrick did it. So basically my Grandfather is part of the making of the great day of St. Patrick’s Day.

As my grandfather finished up telling the story, we started to walk towards the house. The closer we got to the house, and the farther away we got from the rainbow and the gold, the older he grew. By the time we reached the end of the woods my grandpa was 80 again, with his legs trembling from the pain of walking. My grandfather walked in the house for breakfast, and I sat down on the patio chairs and said to myself, “My grandfather is a leprechaun.”

My Grandmother

My grandmother took care of my grandfather better then anybody else could. They had a love for each other that is almost impossible to achieve now a days and I would love to have it. My grandma is a wild woman. I’ve heard stories from her when she was teenager and let’s just say my grandmother wasn’t all so innocent. She snuck out of the house every so often to hang out with older boys, which I couldn’t believe, but she stayed out of trouble for the most part. I know that if somehow I could go back to the past, when my grandmother was 16 or 17, that she and I would probably be best friends. I honestly consider my grandmother my best friend now, and she’s a good 60 years older then I am. But let me tell you this, she looks damn good for her age, and I worry when I bring my boyfriends over.
I can talk to my grandma about anything. She always listens and always cares about what I’m saying. My grandma is always there for me no matter what. One of my grandma’s best qualities besides listening is her ability to cook. I’ve always thought that she should open her own restaurant. She makes amazing food. Anybody who tastes her Pestitsis can say there to die for. Whenever I stay the night at my grandma’s I leave about 10 pounds heavier. But that’s ok, her food’s worth the weight gain
I’ve always wondered why my grandmother had so many names. I mean I changed the name grandma, to NA NA, and she changed her real name from Harriet, to Henryetta, to Teddy? I wonder if people who have known her for a while call her all three names or a mixture of all of them, like Harenryteddy. Like I said before, I always wanted to know why she changed her name so many times, but now that I am older, I figured it out.

Top Secret Granny

My grandma is an undercover FBI agent. She’s been working for the FBI almost 50 years now, since she was in her early twenties. My grandmother had to keep changing her name because she goes undercover all the time. When people find out her identity, she gets her name changed so she cannot be tracked down. My grandmother is a very clever woman. When you’re in the FBI you’re not supposed to tell anybody about your job, or anything. My grandmother did a good job for a while, but I found her out. Now that I think about it, I’ve never seen my grandmother sit in one spot, unless she was playing dominoes. My grandmother is constantly running around. It is even hard to sit her down for a meal. It must be because she’s always got to watch her back. Most people would think that a woman of her age wouldn’t be able to complete the risky task of being an undercover FBI agent, but let me tell you, I’ve seen her in action. I remember about 5 years ago, at my cottage in Canada, my dad thought it would be funny to ask my grandma to come aggressive tubing with me. My dad and I both thought that she would say no, but my grandmother ended up saying yes, and didn’t have a doubt or fear about it. My grandmother and I both got onto a tube. She was sitting behind me, and my dad hit the gas on the boat. We went flying over the waves of Lake Huron. My grandmother didn’t even yell at me when I told my dad to go faster, she just held on like it was no problem. It was amazing, but I knew my grandmother must have the strength from somewhere, and now I know that she got it from all the working out she must do for her job. So, now that I know my grandmother is an FBI agent, I understand so much more about her now. Now how does an FBI agent meet a leprechaun?

How Grandmother met Grandfather

Now I bet your wondering how these two extraordinary people met and how they became the grandparents I know. Well it all went down in Ireland. You see, my grandmother was sent to Ireland on a top secret mission to solve the case of St. Patrick and the snakes. The people of Ireland reported the case as if St. Patrick was somehow forced to flee the country. Since St. Patrick was now terrified to come back into the country of Ireland, people became suspicious that a threat was made against him, and that somebody used snake charming to chase him out of Ireland. My grandmother found this case interesting and a challenge and she decided to take the time to solve this case.
My grandmother went undercover as a 16 year old girl, desperate for love. She asked people what they knew about St. Patrick, and who may have seen him last. She gained her information mostly from friends and family of St. Patrick. They gave her the information that she wanted because she told them she was involved with him and wanted to know what happened to her dear Patrick. From his heart throbbed parents, my grandmother found out that he was out on a job just 2 hours before he fled the country. They claimed to have no idea why he would leave the country so fast, and they couldn’t come up with any reasons why he would leave and why a bunch of snaked would be chasing him. The only problem she mentioned about St. Patrick was that he was in debt, but she said his job was getting him out of it.

My investigating grandmother went to his boss’s house that lived nearly a village away from his family. She found out about the day at work that St. Patrick unexpectedly quit for no reason, and went running off home. According to St. Patrick’s boss, St. Patrick was having a normal day at work, no different than the others. When St. Patrick finished chopping down the tree next to his boss, his boss sent him to another tree about 70 feet away from where they had been working. After about and hour of cutting, St. Patrick came skipping along, told his boss he quit, and galloped across the woods towards his house. His boss was shocked, and didn’t even have time to question St. Patrick’s resignation because St. Patrick skipped off so quickly.

According to St. Patrick’s village, St. Patrick was in debt at the time he ran off. Many people explained to my grandmother that he was only a couple paychecks away from making enough money to pay it off. As my grandmother continued asking questions about St. Patrick’s flee, she ran into a homeless person who lived by the cliff where St. Patrick ran off. The homeless person was obviously suffering from some sort of schizophrenia, and kept repeating the phrase “It was the damn Leprechaun that sent the snakes into his pants, but it was his damn greed that caused the little leprechaun to do it.” My grandmother thought the leprechaun idea was ridiculous, but at this point she was becoming desperate for answers. She asked the homeless person if he had heard anything come out of St. Patrick’s mouth after he jumped, and the homeless person responded with “Damn leprechaun.” My grandmother was on a mission to find a creature that was well known to Ireland, but never actually confirmed of being real. My grandmother has seen a lot of things that she never thought would exist in her job, so she decided to go after the “damn leprechaun.”

Not knowing if she would find anything, my grandmother went off to the tree where St. Patrick’s boss saw him last. My grandmother figured that something must of happened at the tree because that is where St. Patrick became very different. As my grandmother approached the area where the tree was, she heard a tiny voice in the distance. The voice seemed to be screaming help, so my grandmother rushed through the bushes and through the trees where she saw a man in his early 20’s, trapped in a bear trap. The ankle of the man was full of blood and mud and she rushed over to him to help get the bear trap of before it crushed the main artery. She pulled back the springs of the trap, released the man from it, and asked him if he was ok. My grandmother said that that man stood there for about a minute and admired her until he responded with “thank you”. Shortly after that, the world around my grandmother began to shake, and the tree that she originally ran out to the woods to see began to loose its bark. My grandmother grabbed on to the man because she thought that the tree was going to fall over, and she rushed him to the ground to safety. Twice she had attempted to save this man’s life. About a minute later, the shaking had stopped and my grandmother looked up to the tree, to see it still standing. The only difference about the tree was the giant whole that appeared in the middle of it. My grandmother said the light coming out of the hole was as bright as the sun, and she got up to approach it. Within the tree, just as St. Patrick had saw, was a pot of gold. My grandmother turned around to see if the man had seen it to, but that man wasn’t a man anymore. That man was a short dark haired fellow, with pointy shoes, and a green overcoat. That man was a leprechaun, and that man is my grandfather. My grandmother was frightened at first because she never encountered a leprechaun before and she never thought she would. My grandfather walked up to my grandmother and said “It’s all yours”. My grandmother still shocked from the experience replied “what’s all mine?”

My grandfather was talking about gold. Since my grandmother saved my grandfather from the bear trap, she was entitled to half of his gold, and since she attempted to save him when she thought the tree was going to fall down, it entitled her to the entire pot of gold, but my grandmother didn’t accept it and my grandfather didn’t expect her to.

Now you’re probably wondering how my grandfather can take the shape of a man when he’s a leprechaun. When I first found out my grandfather was a leprechaun in woods that one morning, I thought that he used magic to transform him self into a normal sized human. But, I was wrong. My grandfather explained to me that his father had fallen in love with a leprechaun after he discovered her gold. Much like my grandmother had done to my grandfather. According to my grandfather, his father asked for his mother’s friendship instead of the gold and my grandfather’s mother agreed, and they fell in love shortly after that. So, to answer the question, my grandfather is half leprechaun and half human.

Well anyways my grandparents became very good friends, and eventually lovers, and then married. My grandparents had to celebrate two weddings, one in Ireland, beneath the blarney stone, where all of my grandfather’s leprechaun friends met for the ceremony, and also one back in America, where my grandparents ended up living. My grandmother’s parents let them stay in her house, till my grandfather got back on his feet with a new job, besides hiding gold. My grandfather only took the shape of a leprechaun after he moved to America when needed to go to leprechaun conventions underneath the Blarney Stone and also when he would practice his gold hiding in the woods near where my grandparents live now. My grandfather liked being in the human shape, for he could reach things much better. Since he couldn’t use his magic out of Ireland, there wasn’t much use for the little body, unless he wanted to feel younger again. Most leprechauns don’t die until they reach about 200 years old. Since my grandfather was only half leprechaun, he didn’t inherit the gene for aging, but he was able to feel young again when ever he transformed back in to the leprechaun, but with lack of magic, the feeling youth never lasted that long.

I just found out recently that my father Patrick was named after St. Patrick. My grandfather thought that it was the only way he could pay St. Patrick back for introducing him to my grandmother. Without St. Patrick’s greediness, my grandmother wouldn’t have ever had the FBI assign her to case of the fleeing man, which means she would have never met my grandfather in Ireland that day. Speaking of St. Patrick, the poor greedy man ended up pleading to insanity, and was put into a mental hospital. He kept telling everybody that a leprechaun put snakes in his pants. I would have thought he was crazy too.

Up until the day my grandfather passed away, my grandparents were deeply in love. I know that my grandmother carries the luck of the Irish with her at all times, and that my grandfather looks upon all at all times.

To believe my story or not, is up to you. But if the next time you are taking a stroll in the woods and come across a pot of gold and a little man in green, don’t say I didn’t tell you so. From the luck of the Irish to you, here is an Irish blessing to dwell on.

May the road rise to meet you,
May the wind always be at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
And rains fall soft upon your fields.
And until we meet again,
May God hold you in the hollow of His hand.