THIS IS probably going to be a pretty mushy column. So if that sort of thing makes you sick, turn the page quickly. Check out Doug Collins. He won’t be mushy! You see, the kid said ‘‘Granpa’’ the other day. The kid is my granddaughter. Well, if there is ever a moment in your life when you are going to go soft and gooey inside, here it is. This exquisitely cute, shy, in- quisitive creature looking up at you and saying, almost in a whisper: ‘‘Granpa.”’ It was as much a question as a feat of mem- ory. — miraculously passed on through me, now lodged two generations beyond. _ What I am witnessing is the voyage of DNA into the future, using human beings as its vehicle. I am looking at a part-clone of myself, mutated enormously by its parent’s biological infusions, but built from the same genetic blueprint as me, with bits of my psyche somehow scrapped off grandparent is not dealing on a day-to-day basis with the blessed new entity. That’s what parents were in- vented for. They're the ones who have to get down in the bio-trenches, coping with diaper rash and tantrums, fighting the basic power struggle that goes on between moms, dads and kids who want to take over the household and run it their own way, A grandparent can be a subver- sive operating on the sidelines. No matter what the father or mother may say, the grandparent can always whisper a different opinion in the child's ear. IMPAIRED DRIVING Ardagh Hunter Turner Barristers & Solicitors #300-1401 Lonsdale Ave., North Vancouver 986-4366 Free Initial Consultation FREE INITIAL CONSULTATION CHARLES G. STEIN 986-8600 #300-233 W.1st, North Vancouver “Grandparents also always have the perverse too pleasure of seeing their grandchildren get even, as it were, with the parents for the way they acted Grandparents also always have the perverse pleasure of seeing their grandchildren get even, as it Let’s Sell | { | oe as kids.”’ Of course, when I am looking at my granddaughter, I am looking at a part of myself that has miracu- lously marched off into time and space on its own. This is a process that goes back, literally, to the first amoeba to divide itself in half and survive in jhe bo boiling soup of the just-born The truth is that we are all com- posed of elements that may be eternal, or at least capable of billions of years of continuous ex- istence. According to Zeno’s Paradox, you can keep cutting something in half forever and never reach the point where there isn’t anything left to cut, since half of something is always something. If you could play back the histo- ry of the world, you’d reach the point where that first amoeba divided, and you would not have found a single break in the chain of life leading from there to this moment. And forward. Behind my granddaughter’s big blue eyes is genetic material — wiggly sub-molecular coils of DNA along the way and carried like spores into the final grid of her personality. A quarter of my granddaughter is composed of genes passed along from my family line by me through my son. Another quarter consists of material thrown from his mother’s side. A quarter is from my daughter-in-law’s father, and the remaining quarter from her mother. When my granddaughter has children, my direct genetic input will be cut down to one-eighth. And when those great-grand- children spawn great-great-grand- children, only one-sixteenth of U.t-r constituent parts will be made up of my lineage. But, as in Zeno’s Paradox, some part of my clan will always remain so long as the line doesn’t come to an end. In my granddaughter, we have four tribes genetically fused in one individual. Being a grandparent is a con- siderably different subjective expe- rience from being a parent, some of you will know. In our society, at any rate, a were, with the parents for the way they acted as kids. At a certain level, a. grandchild is a grandfa- ther’s revenge of his own children for all those nights they kcpt him awake and ali those times they rebelled. Just as parents generally share a certain empathy with other parents, grandparents are members of an exclusive biological club that you can only enter if you succeed at the nearly-impossible task of raising children to adulthood and getting them off your hands long enough for them to procreate. This is the sort of shared experi- ence that people who have suc- cessfully managed a budget know, Military guys relate to each other in ways they don’t with anyone else. Even mere journalists have a certain commonality that unites us. But the grandparent bond, if 1 may say so, goes a little deeper. We grandparents know a deep and abiding truth that no one else quite realizes. It is this: In the next lifetime, if possible, we will go di- rectly to having grandchildren, and skip the intervening stage of hav- ing children. Grandchildren are perfect. Children never are @ Motorcyclist injured in accident A MOTORCYCLIST - sustained severe injuries after the motorcycle he was riding collided with a southbound vehicle at the corner of 15th Street and Lonsdale Avenue May 21. North Vancouver RCMP said £63 mem t PRAWNS FOR THE BARBIE? Jumbo Queen Chazlotte Island Prawns, quick frozen at sea. 2 kilo boxes only $5.50 per lb. - $1210 per kilo. the collision occurred when the vehicle, which was travelling down Lonsdale, attempted to turn left at 15th and was struck by a north- bound motorcycle. The rider, Darryl Huber, of North Vancouver, was taken to Lions Gate Hospital. He is listed in satisfactory and stable condition at LGH. The driver of the vehicle, Fran- cis Harris, of North Vancouver, sustained minor injuries. The police investigation con- tinues in an effort to determine if charges are warranted. SINTRODUCTORY OFFER: LIVING & DINING ROOM Exp, June 18/89 TRUCK MOUNTED STEAM CLEANING WE AiSO FOR YOUR CONVENIENCE avd REAL ESTATE G