Toy Bender

Be prepared friends, the following is a very personal post. I do tie it into toys though.

I found out a few hours ago that my Grandfather, Paul E. Rudolph, passed away. Yes, the man who was my namesake passed away quietly in his sleep early on Sunday December 21st, 2008. My purpose here isn’t to bother you with personal details about my life, though. I try to stay away from that kind of stuff here and I succeed most of the time, but one of the reasons I wanted to bring it up was to share some toy related things that came to mind with my Grandfather.

The first small thing is that while I don’t remember the exactly the circumstances, because I was so young, I remember getting a couple of G.I. Joe figures at different times from him that have always been important to me.* Both Joes Tripwire and Crazy Legs have always held a special place as, “The Joes my Grandpa got me.” I can’t help but feel like they’ll have a greater importance now that he’s gone. Being the crazy toy collecting fool that I am, I might just have to seek them out mint on card someday.

The other toy related item that has to do with my Grandfather is the fact that we moved into his house 1990, due to the fact he was feeling lonely from having a bigger house to himself for years (my Grandmother passed sixteen years prior to that). It’s an experience I don’t think many of my peers have had, growing up from late adolescence to teen in the same house with a grandparent. I can’t say that we didn’t have some differences, mostly due to the fact that I wasn’t very productive (i.e. I can be very lazy) nor did I speak to girls, but our relations were pretty damn good considering the generational gap and the personality differences.

Right when I was getting closer to high school graduation, I became a toy collector when Kenner started re-releasing Star Wars figures in the late ’90s and my room became a shrine to all things Star Wars. You’ve got to think that a room full of mint in package toys must have seemed incredibly bizarre to a man who at 21 was married, at 24 was drafted and fought in the European campaign in World War II, had four kids, and worked hard all his life. He came from a generation where men got out of school and grew the hell up. In his world, men did not buy toys for themselves and here I was in college, still returning home to put up Star Wars figures on a wall.

The thing that was important to me then, and seems increasingly important to me now, is that he never had one negative word to say to me about it. Although one time in the basement he knocked over a bunch of matchbox cars that had been hanging around and he hadn’t been to keen on that, but he never said anything bad to me about my Star Wars collection. He wasn’t an emotional guy, but if he didn’t like something he’d sure as hell let you know. He was supportive without being overly emotional about it. For instance, when I used to draw a lot he observed me leaving my room all the time to walk all the way across the house to the mounted pencil sharpener (the good one). He then bought me my own electric sharpener so I wouldn’t have to walk so far all the time when I was drawing. Another example was that my dad installed pegboard along one wall of my room in order to better display all of my Star Wars figures. My Grandfather lent his many years of experience with woodworking to help build that pegboard wall. It was those kinds of small things that took on a greater meaning.

He might have not fully understood how I ticked or what compelled me to amass such a large collection of toys, but over time he saw me develop into a normal person who just happened to have all these crazy things in his old room. Perhaps it was due to the fact that he had his own passion for woodworking and could understand having a hobby or maybe he was just glad I wasn’t addicted to drugs.

I’m glad that he was around long enough to see me was able to grow from the kid he got a few toys for, to the ultra nerd who had a big room full of junk, into the fully functioning adult that I am today. I’m extremely happy that he got know the woman I married this year at least a little bit. Most importantly, I’m glad that I got to spend some time with him in his final years.

Now that he’s passed on along with my other grandparents (Grandma Rudolph and Grandpa and Grandma Bogardus), he certainly will be missed and like them he will not be forgotten.

*The same can be said for my Power Master Optimus Prime, one of the coolest gifts I ever got from my Grandparents on my Mom’s side.