My great-grandparents never went by their first names. And from the little memories I can remember, neither of them seemed to like each other all that well.

”Dave! Take me to the bank I need to deposit something!”

“Aww, come’re Jeanie, and quit your fretting!”
I found it quite hilarious that, when my great-grandfather died, there were people shocked to find out his real name was Hugh. All of his army buddies knew him as Dave, since those were the first few letters of his last name. When you are in the Navy during World War 2 and you have to duck and cover, it’s much easier to say ”Get down Dave! than ”Davenport, get down!”

“By the time you’re done sayin’ it he’d already been shot up.” As my great-grandmother would love to interject with.  She was a feisty old broad, and a charismatic one at that. She was born in Italy ”Up by the laces, not by the heel of the boot.” she once told me. When she was a young adult she was a dancer, I never quite figured out what kind of dance she did. But I remember when I was watching “modern dance”- as my mother put it- she happened to walk by and with very full emotion she said ” I used to do that kind of dancing, when I was young.” nothing much was said about her dancing after that. But that is where she got her alias; her stage name was Jean Mason, as part of the Two Little Sticks of Dynamite dancers. Her real name was Vicenza, and she hated that name, because when she moved to the states when she was 3 and everyone would make fun of her name.

My Great-grandfather and mother were in such contrast with each other. My nona (as I would call her –Italian for grandma-) was born wealthy and made it big for a short while then became a politician. She met B-list celebrities and ”Everyone knew Jean.” She was bright too. She could talk her way out of anything, but she fretted.

In juxtaposition, my Great-grandfather, Pop-pop, was an orphan with –I think- 4 other siblings. He was the second to last and when he hit 18 the orphanage sent him out with a nice suit and basically said “Get out of here kid, try the army.” I was certain –even at age 7- that they had said that to all of his siblings since they all joined the army, and were all very well decorated. Well…except Dave. He was a dummy, I don’t know how on Earth that he bagged a good one like my Nona…but he did. And everyone in my family knew he was a dummy. But he was the first Davenport, so we gave him credit for that.

After my mother and father moved my siblings and me up to where we live now, I only saw them on weekends. We would drive 7 hours in a car every Friday after I came home from school to go see them and my Grandmama. For a year we visited so much that my siblings and I all had clothing that stayed there, in their own little drawers.

Holidays were the best, because that was when we spent the longest time in The House. If we were lucky we maybe be able to get one of my Grandmama’s sisters to come, we were a small family.

Dave and Jean would always argue over something. And I can remember standing in front of the fridge and listening to Nona talking to my Grandmama ”I don’t know why I married him. He’s not good with money and he isn’t the sharpest tool in the shed.”  She would say that often, ”Why did I marry him? I could have stayed with Pete.  My Great-grandmother was married to a man named Pete before she married my Great-grandfather, I want to know more about Pete, but the only man to remember him –save for my Nona- died before she did.

So that got me thinking, why did they stay together for so long? Why would two people who act like they don’t like each other stay together for so long? I asked my mother a while ago, and just now the answer makes sense. “When you are growing old, and past the stage of having children, it’s all about companionship, than anything else.”   I think that –secretly on the inside- they loved each other, it was a grumpy-put-up-with-you-love.

…No I know they loved each other, because when my Nona was on her deathbed and ready to leave, my Pop-pop cried and kissed her goodbye and soon after he followed. Let’s face it, whether they wanted to be or not, my Nona and Pop-pop were a pair, and a match made by polar opposites.