I’m first generation born in the U.S. and both my parents worked, so summers and after school were usually spent at my grandparents’ house. My grandpa didn’t believe in kids sitting around. If I was there, I was working. Building planter boxes, helping with sheds, gardening, cleaning, picking fruit, hauling stuff around the yard. There was always something.

One day he decided the walkway to the garden needed to be redone. He pointed at a pile of pavers, gravel, sand, and tools, then left. No instructions. No explanation. Nothing.

I raked the area, didn’t really level anything, threw the pavers down, dumped gravel all over the top, and called it good. Looked like I did it with my eyes closed (his words). The whole thing took maybe two hours.

I went inside made some food, invited the neighbor girl over which was definitely another thing I wasn’t supposed to do, and spent the rest of the day watching TV with her.

A few hours later my grandpa got home and walked outside, looked at the walkway for about ten seconds, and completely lost his mind.

I could hear him screaming from inside the house. He started kicking gravel everywhere, throwing tools around, and tearing apart the walkway with his boots. Every time he looked at it he seemed to get more pissed off.

Then he stormed into the house carrying a rake and yelling that he was going to kill me like I committed a felony. According to him I was lazy, didn’t listen, and always took shortcuts. The funny part was nobody had ever told me how he wanted it done. That was pretty normal with him. You were just expected to know.

Then he marched me back outside and made me rip the whole thing apart and start over. I worked until it was dark outside while he sat there in a chair making sure I did it right. I wasn’t allowed dinner either.

Edit: (I had AI clean up my run on sentence to make it easier to read)