Wrestling.

My brother idolizes my grandfather and I am not using the word idolize loosely. My brother looks up to him as if he is my brother’s personal version of God walking this planet. The two of them have a bond that you rarely find between two people and they value that.
Well, my little brother is a wrestler for his high school. My grandfather can’t see well at night, so it’s important to him to go to all the local matches that happen to fall in the afternoon as often as possible. My brother had a mini tournament at his high school and even though the matches didn’t start until 3, grandpa was right in the front row at 2:30 twitching (literally) with great anticipation.
Now, my grandfather is also extremely protective and still believes that he can take down a 25 year old man, even though he is over 70 with a beer-belly and springs leaks all over the place when he stretches his skin too far. Needless to say, he hasn’t lost his spirit.
A man from one of the opposite wrestling teams decided to be obnoxious and yell obscene things to the two boys that were wrestling on the mat and let’s say the dialogue went a little like this:
Man: “He’s dead! He’s weak! He’s tired, just finish him off! He’s throwing up in his hat!”
At this point grandpa begins to shift uneasily in his chair.
Man: “Just finish it already! For christsake’s it’s a GIRL! You can’t beat a GIRL?!”
Well that was it. Grandpa firmly places his hand on the man’s shoulders and begins to tell the man to calm down before my grandfather decides to take him outside and wring his neck.
Now you may not see the humor in this, but you need to know that the high school my brother attends is extremely prestigious in our city. Kids travel from all over the state to attend this high school and a year’s tuition at this school is equivalent to a semester of college for me – and I attend a Catholic All-Girls School, so it isn’t exactly cheap.
The parents began to slowly, but surely, walk as quickly away from my grandfather as possible before they found themselves in the middle of the situation. The faces of parents began to flush with embarrassment and they found it an appropriate time to “have to use the restroom.”
So back to the story, my grandfather has his hand on the man’s shoulder and begins squeezing and squeezing and squeezing until the man decides to make a fist and pose a gesture as if he’s going to hit my grandfather. Well that was enough to set my Puerto Rican father over who ran over and started yelling and swearing and it was just.. intense. Entertaining, but intense.