Life Lessons from Grandpa
My Grandfather was a Lying, Cheating, Swindling, Grifter Who Loved Me Very Much
I learned a lot about life from him
“It is so good you can love someone for however long you want and no one can arrest you.” –M.F Moonzager
Grandmother’s first husband, my mother’s biological father, was known as “the Magic Man.” He was a charming, articulate, exceptionally light-skinned Black man. He had the look of a classic Greek god. However, he was enough of a criminal that descriptions of his scams were often found at the local police stations. My grandfather was a grifter.
grifter — Dictionary Definition: Vocabulary.com
If there’s one type of person you don’t want to trust, it’s a grifter: someone who cheats others out of money. Grifters are also known as chiselers, defrauders, gougers, scammers, swindlers, and flim-flam men. Selling a bridge and starting a Ponzi scheme are things a grifter might do.
It was magic the way he could transfer money from a stranger’s pockets into his. His friends called him “Magic.” After he and my grandmother split up, he became a gypsy-like visitor to our lives — returning from time to time to live with my parents. I never remember him holding a 9–5 job or any other type of…
