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I recently wrote of my grampa (Jaja) not putting up with my complaint. “Good for nothing, go do something.”

I recall as a small child he was a lot more forgiving and comforting than after I hit age 10 when the stakes went up. A lot. There were expectations. Criticisms. Pressures. Yes. All that.

Was it difficult for me? What you think? I was 10. My personal life focused on chocolate and TV. I sped through prayer and duties quickly as possible so I could get back to my priority. I’d have been a happy boy dying of chocolate poisoning while watching TV on the couch.

When a person is a decade old their immediate and long-term interests are more, by much, than 10 years apart. A child will not know this. His grumpy Jaja knows and says, “Go! Get busy! Do something useless boy. Go.”

I fretted over and resented Jaja’s chiding because it pronounced the obvious. Aside from healthy (insatiable) appetite and natural laziness, I had no skills.

Math was my especial bane. I cried over the times tables. Don’t know why, but I was among the truly numerically challenged. Fingers and toes capped my achievement at a meager 20. Gaining but one more digit in the bathtub kept me far down the scale of mathematical shining. Oh woe! The pressure was on.

Quizzes and tests came like flocks of mosquitoes, and there I was practically defenseless with finger-toe math as my weapon. Was sad. I fretted and struggled.

Brings me to another observation I call “Flow Gently Sweet Afton.” Some of you will recognize the beginner tune (melody) oft appearing in student music lessons. By gads, I saw a lot of it.

Mom and dad, God knows why, were of the opine I should be musical. Mom was a proficient play-by-ear musician. Therefore it was assumed or hoped or desired my latent ability could be brought out. With the player piano they brought into our house. No.

How about the wonderful large-as-me accordion. Good for young arm muscles but musically a bust.

A relation who played orchestral trumpet was enlisted. I was able to amply and consistently disappoint him. Bugle? The same. Violin came last, and, again, Jaja enters the picture.

Any of the rest of you have a grandparent who built violins? Jaja made violin shaping jigs (sounds a bit poetic, doesn’t it?) and experimented with wood and string placements. Interesting and impressive. So it was thought, hoped, desired I might go in that direction of horrible noise. Horrible?

Close. You’d have to hear Jaja play to appreciate the stark difference between violin and fiddle. It was my tween-age view that piwa (beer) and fiddling lived together.

At family gatherings Jaja never sat to dinner (the piwa was on the porch, after all) with us. Instead he’d roam porch to dining room playing his collection of fiddle pieces until the porch won his full attention. Sigh of relief.

Hearing from the porch tunes about fat Polish wives was less annoying to the ladies than having it overhead.

I was fond of “I sold my shoes for a bottle of booze. Don’t recall ever seeing Jaja barefoot. Guess he never had to sell his shoes, which not so long ago were a sign of success.

Shoes. A few generations earlier, footwear wasn’t as common as it is today. In much of the working world shoes were not wasted on kids. The barefoot boy of traditional went unshod because shoes cost money working families didn’t have.

In contrast, I had shoes and parents who suffered through me murdering “Flow Gently Sweet Afton” on a series of instruments for a string of instructors who I suspect felt considerable relief when mom and dad decided their little prodigy wasn’t going to excel at piano after all.

My gift to music and people is to not play an instrument.

I write this in a new year context because the same old issue or issues stay with us because we are us. There is often no direct route to finding one’s talents or developing an individual’s gifts. The most gifted harpist on the planet faces grim opportunities if they’re born in remote Siberia or into a culture equating music with demons.

While we often think of talent as individual, I think there’s a hint of social shaping that sprouts tons of garage rock bands and nary a single set of hand-shadow players.

Society or culture promotes some things more than others. Way it is.

A vibrant community (I couldn’t resist using the term) of campfire storytellers won’t grow (or at least hasn’t so far) under fluorescent ceiling lights. There is no arctic exploration in a vehicle tunnel. It’s obvious (to me), and yet many will say “anything’s possible!” It’s not.

Now let me redirect back to my grampa. I’m sure more than a few readers will have taken offense at Jaja saying I was good for two sorry things. Were you one? Why? The barb was not aimed at you and was not the sole exchange between us.

Age 10, my particular skills (math and music not among them) were nose picking and butt scratching. Seeing me in one of my useless modes, Jaja provided a verbal boot.

When I’d attempt things, he’d take an interest. Such as my construction of abominable cages for birds. God knows why I picked up baby birds, maybe to find a use for shoeboxes. But, I did, and if you can picture the handicraft of a 10-year-old and then lower your expectations you’ll get some idea of the godawful bird prisons I crafted for the sorry survivors of my ministrations.

I ‘spect a kinder tactic by Jaja would not have provided the “I’ll show ‘em” energies that drove me to try harder. Treated nicely, I’d have been satisfied keeping a watchful eye on cookie jar and TV.

Booted out the door, I had to do things. Jaja would say, “Show what you made.” I’d explain. He’d listen. A rough hand that forces you on is better than the softer hand of indulgence.