Henry Empey
Freshman Honors English
September 3, 2007

One very important person in my life is my grandfather, Henry Andrew Raymond. When I picture my grandfather, he is relaxing in his La-Z-boy recliner in his living room. He lives in a house that was built on his father's farmland in Fairfax, Vermont. Normally you can find my grandfather sitting in his recliner, sipping his coffee and watching the Vermont news and weather with my grandmother.

My grandfather is tall, slim and bald-except for a little hair on each side of his head. He always wears a brown bathrobe and black new balance sneakers. He has pretty bad eyesight and always wears glasses.

I love to go and visit Grampa as often as I can even though he lives more than two hours away from us. When I go into their house I can always smell peppermint hard candies because he always has some with him. I often can also smell some gasoline from his John Deere lawn tractor. He has almost 3 acres of lawn and in the heart of the summer he spends many hours riding around the yard on his John Deere. The clinking of its blade and humming of that engine on a summer afternoon are unforgettable.

I have seen many interesting things and had many fun experiences with my Grampa whether it was hearing about his war with the moles in his yard, the Tunbridge Fair, visiting our cousins' sugar house in the middle of mud season or searching for the perfect frozen turkey for Thanksgiving. There is never a dull moment with my grandfather. However, one event in particular sticks out in my mind.

The John Deere lawn tractor is one of my Grampa's prized possessions. When I was little he would take me out for special rides. When I was about 5 years old he decided that on this ride I could help him steer the tractor. We pulled away from the shed with many of our family members watching us and smiling from the windows of my grandfather's house.

Suddenly we heard a snap, a loud buzz and everyone yelling and pointing at us from my grandparent's house which had suddenly turned very dark. Apparently we had run over a "forgotten" electrical outlet in the back yard. The collision shut off the power to the house.

"Grampa," I said, "What did we just do?"
"Oh, gee, I think we hit an electrical outlet," he mumbled.

It only took a few minutes to get the power back on to the house so I guess it was no big deal, other than a broken outdoor outlet. However, the other thing that came out of this is that Grampa has never been allowed to forget about this. My grandfather loves to pick on people and this gave everyone else in the family something to pick on him about.

Looking back on this, I hold it as a great memory of my grandfather and me. He can make really simple things very fun. He is a very energetic and active senior citizen who shows me how to enjoy my family and retirement to its fullest. I hope I am like him when I am in my 70's