Every family has its legends.
Some are remembered for wisdom.
Some for business success.
And some — like my Grandpa AD Mac — are remembered for sheer mischief.
Grandpa and Grandma Irene built a successful Michigan bean-processing business. When asked how he became so successful? “
“Simple…it’s our slogan. “Eat our Beans and Let Us Hear from Ya”, but that isn’t why we still talk about him.
We remember the pranks.
The one-liners.
And the stories that still get told at family gatherings decades later.
Grandpa summed up his feelings about grandchildren perfectly:
“You kids bring me double happiness — happy when you come, and happy when you go.”
That pretty much tells you everything you need to know about Grandpa.
He was quick with a line, fearless with a prank, and always looking for his next victim.
The Bean Business
By day, Grandpa and Grandma Mac ran a fast-growing Michigan bean-processing company.
They worked hard.
They built a successful business.
But once Grandpa left the factory, beans took a back seat to entertainment.
And Grandpa was usually the entertainment.
The Funeral Lady
One of Grandpa’s best friends was a small-town funeral director who had a problem.
There was a little old lady in town who regularly checked the obituaries and attended funerals for people she barely knew.
She had a routine.
Sign the guest book.
Walk up to the casket.
Lean over the deceased.
Whisper:
“I knew him well.”
Then head straight for the sandwiches and lemonade.
Apparently, free funeral food was a major part of her retirement plan.
The funeral director had finally had enough.
Grandpa had a solution.
They staged a fake wake.
Grandpa put on his best suit, climbed into a casket and waited.
Sure enough, the woman arrived.
She signed the guest book.
Grandpa ate his breakfast.
Walked solemnly toward the casket.
Leaned over Grandpa.
And whispered:
“I knew him well.”
Grandpa suddenly shot straight up out of the casket.
“THE HELL YOU DID!”
I don’t know exactly what happened next.
But I’m fairly certain she skipped the sandwiches.
The Hospital Trick
Grandpa didn’t restrict his pranks to friends and relatives.
Medical professionals were fair game.
During one hospital stay, Grandpa received his breakfast tray.
Eggs.
Ham.
Toast.
And a glass of apple juice.
Beside the tray, the nurse left a sterile specimen cup.
“Mr. McIntyre, enjoy your breakfast. We’ll need a urine sample.”
But he didn’t drink the apple juice.
Instead, he carefully poured it into the specimen cup.
A little later, the nurse returned.
She spotted the full container.
“Perfect. Thank you.”
She reached for it.
Grandpa grabbed it first, held it up to the light and studied it.
Then he said:
“Wow. This looks so good, I think I’m going to run it through twice.”
And drank it.
I would have paid good money to see that nurse’s face.
The Great Denture Swap
But Grandpa’s masterpiece may have happened at a Michigan Bean Association convention at a historic resort.
These conventions supposedly involved beans.
From the stories I heard, beans occupied approximately 15 minutes of the agenda.
The rest involved drinking, joking, storytelling and harassing competitors.
One night, around 3:00 in the morning, Grandpa slipped the front-desk clerk twenty dollars and somehow acquired the master key.
Then he went to work.
Room by room, Grandpa quietly entered while everyone slept.
His mission?
Swap their dentures.
Apparently, the Michigan bean industry had a surprisingly high percentage of false teeth.
The next morning, chaos erupted.
Hungover bean executives woke up, reached for their dentures and discovered that their teeth no longer fit.
Some apparently thought they’d had a stroke.
Others thought something had happened to their jaws overnight.
Eventually somebody asked the obvious question:
“Where’s Mac?”
The mystery was solved.
But there was still one problem.
Nobody knew whose teeth belonged to whom.
So all the dentures were placed on a table in the hotel dining room.
Imagine breakfast.
Coffee.
Eggs.
Toast.
And thirty sets of used teeth lined up next to the silverware.
One by one, grown men walked around the table trying on dentures until somebody yelled:
“These are mine!”
Disgusting?
Absolutely.
Ridiculous?
Completely.
Pure Grandpa Mac.
Closing Time
Grandpa also had no patience for guests who overstayed their welcome.
After several hours of listening to somebody discuss their retirement account, gas mileage, medical problems or grandchildren who definitely should have been starting quarterback, Grandpa had a solution.
He’d look across the room at Grandma and announce:
“Irene, we need to go to bed so these people can go home!”
Subtlety was not one of Grandpa’s strengths.
But it worked.
Grandpa’s Real Legacy
Grandpa and Grandma built a successful business.
That was an accomplishment.
But decades later, nobody sits around telling stories about how many bags of beans they processed in 1963.
We tell the story about the woman at the funeral.
We tell the story about the apple juice.
And we definitely tell the story about a dining-room table covered with dentures.
Grandpa understood something long before the rest of us did:
Life is more fun when you give people something to laugh about.
His bean business may have fed a lot of people.
But Grandpa AD Mac gave our family something that lasted even longer.
A lifetime supply of stories.
You Cant Make this stuff up 