My Turn: Grandfather's nickname will put a smile on your face

I don’t readily smile, which may be the reason I’ve always had a problem with little kids.

As a little kid, I occasionally smiled, as some pictures proved. I obviously didn’t have a problem exhibiting my buck teeth for general viewing. Braces fixed that problem by 13, just in time to sneer for the camera at my bar mitzvah and ushering in the era encompassing my life since.

I’m not unhappy. My life has been great. My unsmiling face is just one of those inexplicable things that everyone from my parents to my wife, family, friends and acquaintances has come to accept — and doesn’t take personally. They realize nothing is going to change now that I’m well into my 60s. With people I just meet, well that’s another story, but so be it. I’m not changing for them, either.

As a young adult I never paid much attention to other people’s kids. Then I met my future wife, who brought along the baggage of a 5-year-old nephew and 2-year-old niece, forcing the issue. The boy tolerated me, or so I thought, until one day he freaked out in the car for no apparent reason; he clawed my arm, drawing blood, from shoulder to elbow. The girl bawled as soon as she saw me, and none of us could figure the reason as I tried to nicely show some teeth to rectify things.

When my wife was expecting our first child, everyone was fearful for our future offspring given my track record — and not caring at all about me. I did my best to ingratiate myself, but obviously it wasn’t good enough. My daughter blurted, "Daddy I hate you" as a 2-year-old after a particularly brutal bedtime reading session. My son was a piece of cake: We were buddies from the beginning, so maybe there was hope.

Not so fast.

My nephew’s kids and niece’s son were OK. But my niece’s daughter inherited the unbridled fear from her mother (despite my showing plenty of teeth) and screamed whenever she saw me. Everyone thought it was funny.

I shrugged it off as a genetic malady or fear of Santa Claus, given my long silver-white mane and scrubby facial hair, until one day she walked over and asked, "Why was I ever scared of you?"

I responded, "I don’t know."

She casually followed with, "So what do you do for a living?"

Weird, indeed, but now we’re good.

Both of my kids have gotten married in the past few years. When my son and daughter-in-law were expecting a daughter last spring, the big questions were how I’d deal with another baby girl and what I wanted to be called (besides assorted curse words).

My friends who are already grandfathers picked Pops, Gramps, G-Pa, Grampa and so on. But those weren’t for me. (My daughter-in-law’s dad was going with "Grandpa No. 1," reason unknown other than to mess with me.)

I’m self-aware, if anything, and wanted to keep expectations under control, so after much thought I ordained myself "Grumpa," receiving universal agreement as to its perfection.

Granddaughter No. 1 is a year old, and No. 2 (courtesy of my daughter and son-in-law) is 4 months old, so I’m not called anything yet. Still, they’ve both carried on the tradition by often crying at the sight of me.

I’ve been forcibly smiling as nicely as I can to try to mitigate their angst. So far the results are mixed, but there’s plenty of time and no escape. Both families recently moved way too close to us.

Gary Mantell,

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