this is my grandpa. david warren mcintyre, or as i so affectionately refer to him - d. dubya mcintyre. him and my grandma are from columbus, georgia - a factoid that i struggled with up until the last couple years. confused, i once asked my grandpa which state it was he was from. "georgia!! you raise that goddamn rebel flag boy!" was his reply.in many ways he was a dichotomy. he was - to a certain degree - racist, as would be expected of someone who grew up in the deep south in the 1930's. it wasn't uncommon for him to talk shit about mexicans and every once in a while if he drank a little too much he'd drop an n-bomb and then cover his mouth like a small child who accidentally just said "fuck" in front of their mother for the first time. at christmas my cousin and i tried to record him to referring to obama as "a nigger" but no dice - grandpa had more class than that. but he did go so far as to say that we should all be ashamed for voting for him.
but his son-in-law and two of his grandchildren were mexican and even had an adopted chinese granddaugther. in spite of his upbringing, he loved them just the same as he did any other family member. his one time best friend, al (who died in the '91 quake) was black. he loved that man to death, yet still used that awful word when talking to or about him. it was pretty funny.
he wasn't much of a talker. not to say that he couldn't hold a conversation, but he was definitely the strong silent type. probably because anytime he did open his mouth about something emo, he would cry. we were in vegas together once and he started talking about my father, who at the time was sick. he didn't get more than two words out before he welled up and couldn't continue. and that kind of frames who he really was. he just had a giant heart and an overwhelming love for his family.
grandpa had quite a way with words. once, while digging ditches for him, he told me i was "sweatin' like a whore in church". another time during my radical phase i was extolling the virtues of anarchism and communal living at a family gathering. he didn't catch most of what i was saying, but when he did catch led him to announce "boy! i love you......but i hate your fucking politics".
when i embarked on my ill-fated marriage adventure he made arrangements at the imperial palace in vegas (where he was practically royalty) for my bachelor party. over dinner he told all of us that there "better not be any bullshit" going on in the room. curious and wanting to the know the ground rules i inquired "what exactly defines 'bullshit' grandpa?" without missing a beat he said "no cornholin' and no pukin' on the floor".
grandpa wasn't the give-you-a-bunch-of-money type of grandparent. but he was always willing to let me work for him. i never would have gotten through the first 5 years of college had it not been for all the landscaping work he let me do. i recently told him how much i appreciated the job training and how it came in handy when i moved to seattle.
my grandpa loved to smoke, drink, gamble and fight but always held down a job. in the end he told me "do what you need to do but always leave a little room for fun" which in my opinion was a highly euphemistic thing for him to say because in his 75 years he left a lot of room for fun. another time in vegas, he drunkenly told me how he played blackjack to make sure grandma would be taken care of when he was gone. and yes, he was crying.
if i had to pick one word to describe the man it would be badass. he spent most of my life telling me that he would "whuup my ass" often threatening to do so with one arm tied behind his back. but he never laid a hand on me. except for that time when i was 4, but i had it coming. i got a great deal of enjoyment out of mocking his accent and mannerisms. sometimes if i went a little too far he'd shoot me this look, say "fuck you" and then laugh. i think that is what i'll miss about him the most.
grandpa was a good man. he had his flaws and made his mistakes like every other bipedal hominid on the planet but he was full of love. so much so that it caused him to overcome his own prejudices. so much that he could barely express it words without breaking up like a space shuttle over texas. his love for his family, especially his wife, drove him to stay alive long after his short ass little body should have given out.
he died on tuesday in his own bed and surrounded by the people that loved him the most. if that ain't the way to go i don't know what is.
