About Me

About Me

    Briefly, my life is divided along the distinct pre-and post-accident fault line. Prior to my accident, I was married for 20+ years to a wonderful wife and we had five exceptional children together. Then one day, I decided to climb a beautiful old-growth oak and take some pictures of the barn owl. I slipped and fell some 35 feet directly on my head. Fortunately, I had a hard head, but a soft backbone. I ended up paralyzed from the shoulders down. That was October 29, 2006. Now, I am the grateful husband of the same wife mentioned above, still with five even more exceptional children, and the very proud grandfather of four beautiful girls. And, oh, I now practice the art of quadriplegia!

About The Nickname Gimpa

Do you ever have one of those dreams where you’re in the classroom and the teacher calls your name to come up to the blackboard and do a math problem in your mind suddenly goes blank? I had one of those dreams before any of my grandchildren were born and it went like this: I was in the classroom filled with other men about my same age, but I noticed that not any of them were in wheelchairs. The teacher was upfront, and though I can’t make out her face, she was very tiny like a baby. She asked if anyone would be willing to come forward and write their name on the blackboard. Of course, I shot my hand up without even thinking and the teacher motioned to me to come forward and that’s when it hit me… I didn’t know my name! Some of the other students in the class laughed out loud and some of them were yelling, “Just put grandpa”, or, “Just right PaPa”. I froze and that’s what woke me up.

Now whether this was an actual dream or some sort of other altered conscious experience that came from morphine, I can’t really say for sure. All I know is when I came back to consciousness, I needed a “grandfather name”. Why I felt such urgency is unexplainable. I had no grandchildren at the time. Only one of my own children was married and a candidate to give me a grandchild, but they assured us that it was a ways off. My wife, the grandmother to be, had already chosen her preferred “grandmother name” – Mimi. That was catchy and easy to remember, but I knew that Pipi ( where the I is pronounced the same as the I in Mimi) would not go over very well and could become a bit confusing during the potty training stage.

While lying in my hospital bed with a halo on, I discovered that picking a “grandfather name” is not quite so easy. I contemplated my dilemma for a few days. I asked nurses and others who came in the room about names that they know. While I was growing up, it seems to me that there were only two choices and they depended on where you worked or your accent. It was either ”grandpa” if you were from a working class and wore overalls or “grandfather” if he spoke with an English accent. Because of several marriage “disruptions” that had occurred in my family of origin, I had four grandfathers. Three of them I called “grandpa” with their last name added on the end for clarification and the other I just called “Hoss” because that’s who he looked like and he was a stepgrandfather. None of those fit my personality and were nowhere as cool as Mimi. One of my nurses suggested that I try out an app that she knew about. She asked me for some basic information and what my favorite rap song was. Now, I have heard a few rap songs, but I’m certain that I don’t have a favorite one. She picked one for me, put all the info in the app and it came up with the name “G-dawg-pa”! Can you imagine that? And the app even promised that I would be more popular if I used that name. Well, it scored too high on the stupid meter for me.

Then one day I was reading a book of gimp jokes, something the rehab doctors like to have us read to see if were still alive or we need more depression medication. Suddenly, it hit me, what about “gimpa”. At first glance, it sounds kind of mean. But, after you say it a few times while you’re laughing, it fits me perfectly! I mean I am crippled, and I know that my grandchildren will see that. But perhaps, this name, my grandchildren will understand that I am handicapped but that’s no reason to be sad. It certainly will be distinguishable from their other grandfathers’ names. I floated it by Mimi and my daughter and it rated high on their cuteness scale. I’ll update this post as I go along with this name and let you know how it goes. With love, Gimpa