Grandpa Lou

Grandpa Lou

I have mostly fond memories of Grandpa Lou, my father’s father. When my brother and I came to live with him and Grandma Fan in Harrisburg, he was about 58 years old and I was a toddler.  I lived with him until I was 11 years old.

He was named Leib Winokur when he was born in Ukraine in 1898. He came to America in 1906 with his family, and became known as Louis. Sometime before he married Grandma Fan, he changed his last name to Vinicoff. Maybe at her request.

He owned Vinicoff Electric Company, which sold electrical supplies. He drove a red pickup truck with the company name on the side.

I don’t think I ever saw his office or shop. It’s probably just as well that I didn’t. One evening he came to pick me up at a friend’s house wearing a gauze eye patch, because a dangling wire in the shop had scratched his eye.

One time I was cleaning Grandpa’s plastic eyeglasses for him, and broke the frame. I was mortified, but he was very kind about it, telling me that they were old and ready to be replaced. I mostly have chosen metal-framed glasses for myself ever since.

Grandpa and Grandma belonged to the Jewish country club, where she played golf and he presumably smoked cigars and drank with his buddies. To this day, if I catch a whiff of cigar smoke, I smile and think of Grandpa, even while my friends express their disgust.

I can picture him reading the newspaper in an armchair in the living room. Mother told me that I learned to read from Grandpa while we read the newspaper together. Which might explain why I could already read by the time I started first grade.

Once Grandpa gave me a square purple cough drop from his jacket pocket. It was delicious, and may have contained codeine. Many times thereafter, I looked in his pockets, in hopes that another luscious morsel had found its way there.

Grandpa liked to be comfortable in his clothes. When too hot, he removed a layer, regardless of style. That was a problem when he visited Southern California one summer. He removed his shoes and socks for a walk of a couple blocks, and burned his feet rather badly. Not one to learn from others’ mistakes, I did the same thing to myself decades later. I took off my shoes and socks at a Mime Troupe performance in Dolores Park in July, and got second-degree burns on the tops of my feet.

We had a rumpus room in the basement, which had a bar at one end. I wanted to use the bar for writing, and Grandpa installed an overhead light for me. I remember writing there a Nancy Drew-like story that involved the neighborhood department store. I am grateful for his efforts to support my writing so long ago. And I hope he would be proud of me.