We don’t watch much television out here at Brownspur, having made the observation years ago that there’s not much worth watching, at least not for what it costs to get all those channels. The Brownspur TV screen is usually just a venue for watching movies. The GrandBoys, Sir and Crash, are fascinated by the older VCR movies.

But sometimes they find that watching with their elderly Grunk (short for Granddaddy Uncle Bob) can be trying, to say the least. One has to admire the kids’ patience.

For instance, we were watching “The Empire Strikes Back” and the good guys were trying to get away from the waystation planet of Lando Calrissian, and they got split up.

Princess Leia and Chewbacca the Wookie saw Luke Skywalker go off into another corridor, but the Princess cries out to warn him. The Grunk is a little deaf, and I did not catch the warning, so I softly asked Sir, sitting on the arm of my chair, “What did she say?”

Without taking his eyes from the action on the screen, the 5-year-old replied, “We’re trapped!”

Since he said it softly too, I queried, “We’re trapped?”

And the kid looks at me with all the patience in the world for an elderly companion, and explained, “No, Grunk. They are trapped!”

Then right back to the movie, but ready for the next time he has to explain modern technology and language to an older person. In a way, perhaps Sir was trapped, for he was bound to have to watch another movie with The Grunk.

Which happened to be not long in the future. Within two weeks, The Grunk was called upon to grandboy-sit whilst Momma and Daddy went out. We ate supper, then snuggled up on the sofa with Sir on my left and Crash on my right, to watch “The Lion King.”

Crash had not been feeling well that day, so he laid across my lap and got comfortable early in the movie. I had been instructed to put him to bed if he drifted off to sleep, so he’d rest better.

Around the time that little lion cub Simba gets rescued by his Lion King daddy from the wildebeest stampede, then daddy can’t get out of the way and gets trampled, I thought I heard a gentle snore from Crash. I looked down, but could not see if his eyes were closed. So I nudged Sir to glance across my lap to see if his brother had drifted off.

“Sean, is he asleep?” I asked softly.

I had to ask twice because Sir was rightly caught up in the cub trying to arouse his trampled kingly father.

“Is he asleep?” I repeated.

And Sir turned to me with an expression that said, “Lord give me patience with my grandfather here,” and replied as a 5-year-old to a 2-year-old, breaking the bad news as gently as possible, “No, Grunk. He’s dead.”

I think the kid even patted my hand.

Actually, Crash was alive and well, not even thinking about going to sleep in the midst of such a good movie. Within a few minutes, all three of us were singing, “Hakuma matata.”

I’ve already said I’m hard of hearing, but durned if I want to ask a 5-year-old or a 2-year-old to translate what dumb animals are singing.

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Bob Neill is an outdoors writer. He lives in Leland, Miss.