When Grandpa Bob came back from his first date with my grandma he said

“I’m going to marry Dale, or a woman just like her.”

He impressed her with his SAT scores.

He sold his prized stamp collection 

To pay for their phone calls.

 

My mom knows all too well that when he’s in a pleasant mood 

He cracks jokes

About golf or traveling or my brother’s picky eating. 

When he’s in a lousy mood

He’s irritable and grouchy and acts his old age

Always grumbling under his breath. 

And whenever we go out to eat

He practically learns our server’s life story 

He says

“If I was from the Guide Michelin what should I order?”

 

He has a black bushy mustache

A nose like Cyrano

And glasses as round as the buttons on a polo shirt.

 

Once little children in a park thought he was wearing a disguise.

He told them he wasn’t.

They didn’t believe him

But he wasn’t exasperated.

He just told the children to try 

And take off his nose.