homo escapeons

MY GRANDFATHERS WERE GRAND

Back in the 60s I lived in a small town and my house

(Train Station) was five minutes away from both sets of Grandparents.

Joseph (Jeff) Coppens left Belgium to make a new life here in Canada. He had a Flemish accent that I adored and the interior of his home was decorated exactly as it would have been back in Brakel, Belgium.

He lived next door to the Catholic Church, rang the church bell on Sunday Mornings, entertained the Priest who lived next door, and his garden was surrounded by the Cemetery.

Jeff always made me (and everyone around him) laugh and feel at ease.

Grandpa Coppens would let me tag along with him when he went to the Convent with libations in hand to entertain the Nuns. I guess Grandma wasn’t too concerned.

I would sit in the corner and watch him send these tipsy gals into fits of hysterical laughter. I wasn’t raised Catholic so I didn’t share the fear and reverence of the Nuns that the other kids had. I remember thinking how great it was to be able to watch Grandpa make people laugh.

I was lucky enough to go back to Belgium with him in the late 70s to see where he came from. I felt completely at home inside his sibling’s homes because they looked exactly like their house back in Fannystelle.
The last time I saw him was shortly after returning from Europe.

Grandpa jumped out of his hospital bed stark naked and begged me to take him home.

He died of emphysema a few days later.

Melvin (Mel) Simonson was my other Grandfather who lived 2 houses away from my other Grandpa!

Can you say Pleasantville.
Mel was a Swedish American who had moved North to farm with his brothers. Grandpa Simonson was the larger than life guy who would stand on a table at a Bonspiel or a Social and tell jokes in between playing his accordion.

Mel had a hilarious laugh, one of those Hee Hee Hee Burt Reynolds type laughs that you don’t expect to hear eminating from someone who could lift a 45 gallon drum into the back of his truck.

I will never ever forget the night that Grandpa was babysitting me..

I was about 6 or 7 and I can reproduce every item in that room. Mel and his buddy Pa were watching the Untouchables on the TV and tossin’ back a few Rye. For whatever reason I jumped up on the coffee table and started impersonating Elliot Ness. Grandpa spit out his drink and started howling.

I kept going..threw everything that I had at him…

I finished him off with my impersonation of a Giraffe running in slow motion..

at which point he fell off of the couch and rolled on the floor holding his sides.

Like my other Grandfather, Mel died shortly after we had all just returned from a big trip to Disneyland in 1968.

I can remember sitting in the car in my pyjamas in the middle of the night and watching my Mom walk across the Hospital parking lot to tell us that Grandpa had died of a Heart Attack.

I was 10 years old.

I like to think that my ‘funny’ DNA comes directly from these two guys. Two different styles but both of them had the same effect on people.

Jeff and Mel probably never knew how much I learned from them…

but I did tell them that I loved them every time I saw them.

I think that is all that my Grandfathers needed to know.