Gramps and Offspring

The other night while rocking some Offspring on Rock Band, I remembered a strange occurrence with my grandfather involving Offspring.

I think it was Christmas of 1994. Gramps had given me my first ever CD player in the form of boom box. My sister followed this with giving me my first ever CD, Offspring's Smash album. Later that morning I went to the basement with the boombox and played the CD.

I think overall Smash is an innocent album. There is some cursing mixed in, but the words are typically difficult to understand unless you really pay attention. That is except for one small section of the song Bad Habit. Toward the end of the song, all of the instruments stop and it is just the singer's voice yelling "You stupid dumbshit goddam motherfucker."

Of course this part of the song came on right as Gramps walked into the room. We both kind of froze. Gramps has never scolded me and this was no exception. He just walked over and grabbed some trash to take out, basically ignoring what had happened. I also ignored it and that was the end of it.

I would probably not think too much of it, but I had very few experiences with Gramps that were just the two of us. This was probably one of about five. He died 5 years later. I regret that we didn't get to know each other better. And I regret that this was the only knowledge he ever had of my musical taste. Especially since he is a man who owned a radio station and loves music.