Special Privileges and Perks for Being a Grandfather

Will and Charlie are coming to St. Louis today. They are my grandsons, William, age 9 and Charlie, age 6 from Houston, Texas.

Their dad, Tom, from Kirkwood would call them the house wreckers. Their grandmother, Barb would call them perfect little angels.

Likely, they fall somewhere in between.

I am really looking forward to their two-week visit. I’ve not seen them or their mom Emily  (our daughter) in some six months or more. It is far too much time between visits.

The boys are products of the ‘move-around-the-country’ generation. Seems that Tom is an executive with the Union Pacific Railroad. He is a rising star with the railroads, and supervises a couple thousand workers from Houston to Corpus Christi, Texas.

While the title and pay is great, that means constantly moving around the U.S. The boys have already lived in Chicago, Janesville, Wisconsin; Omaha, Salt Lake City and now the Woodlands north of Houston.

Believe me, that’s not such an easy life. They have to be adaptable, always changing schools while making new friends.

Their mom and grandma are leaving almost immediately for a weekend wedding shower in Detroit. Our son Andrew, 32 is going to tie the knot in September to a wonderful young lady from Detroit, Dana Holcman. The Holcman family is throwing a holiday party and wedding shower in Detroit this weekend.

So that means Will, Charlie and their dog, Fritz and yours truely will be batching it. We have a jam packed schedule planned. Saturday, we will Metro Link it to the Cardinals game with the Marlins. From what I’ve been told, after the cotton candy, popcorn, nachos and soda, the boys will want to split around the 4th or 5th inning. We shall see?

I think dinner  at Fitz’ in the Loop sounds good. They can load up on the carbs with the root beer, burgers and fries. Dessert of course will be at Ted Drewes.

Keep your fingers crossed, all these concoctions will mix well.

Will made some friendships during last summer's visit, and one boy is having a birthday party Sunday. Both Will and Charlie are invited. It will just be Fritz and myself for a couple of hours between car pool duties.

Sunday night, I think it will be a pizza party at Happy Joe’s or Fortel’s Pizza Den, both in Affton. Both are extremely kid friendly places.

We have other stops. I want to take them to the on Saturday so they get oriented to the hot game of lacrosse. I think that’s a sport that would suit them well. They are into everything sports: Will has tried fencing and golf. They tell me Charlie is a little football super star and will play tackle football this fall (a religious experience in Texas) to be certain.

If there’s any free time, we will head to Clayton Shaw Park to swim. Next week, we will stop by to meet the Superplexus ambassadors.

Being a grandpa has special privileges. All of this will be squeezed in between doing a bunch of assignments for Patch.