My 2 Second Shelf Life

I am What I am.

I'm a simple person who can find pleasure in simple things.
I don't need to be high falutin'.
I don't need to have the most expensive clothes, furniture or car.
I don't need to brag about the things that I have, or things that I have done, or places that I've been.

I joke often, and call myself a peasant.
I have been in situations where I have been made to feel poor, and less than by social climbers and rich people.
I have been in places where I thought that I was dressed fine, only to look down at myself and see that my clothes were not as expensive as those around me.
I have been made to feel small.

I remember a long time ago, my mother wanted to take my Grandparents out to a shmantsy restaurant in Belgrade. She wanted to show my Grandparents that she was doing well.
That she had risen from the farm and village that she was born in.

My Grandmother dressed in her church best, but not my Grandfather.
My Grandfather dressed as though he was merely going up the street to Juliska's for a drink with his buddies.
His old pants, frayed shirt and cardigan portrayed him as the villager that he was.

When the bread was put on the table, he pulled out his trusty penknife and cut a smaller piece. My mother was embarrassed, and put her hand on his arm.
"Tata", she said quietly...he pulled his arm away with force and anger, and continued cutting his bread with the penknife he always carried with him.
The one he cut tomatoes, spring onions and slanine for breakfast with.
The one he cut the string holding cornhusks with.
The one he pulled out to cut anything he needed to cut at a moments notice.

...and I silently cheered him on.

My Grandfather was a proud man.
He had a right to be proud.
He survived Dachau, and Hungarian work camps.

Who cared what the waiter or other patrons thought?
He earned the right to be who he was.

Wherever he was.