Homer's mother, Mona Simpson, was married to Grampa for several years. According to "Let's Go Fly a Coot", they met in the 1950s and hooked up on the day Grampa allegedly broke the sound barrier. She became entranced with the hippie lifestyle after seeing Joe Namath's hair on television. She became a fugitive from justice after she abetted in the sabotage of a biological weapons research lab owned by Mr. Burns to deliberately poison everyone in Springfield. To explain this to his then-six-year-old son, Grampa said that Mona died while Homer was at the movies. Grampa has a poor, but sometimes loving relationship with his son, who placed him in a nursing home as soon as he could, despite Grampa selling his house in order to provide Homer with a mortgage. It is recurringly suggested that, while caring, Grampa was a strict disciplinarian who could be very controlling, neglectful, and even emotionally abusive towards Homer when he was growing up and he still had not forgiven him for that. Saying that, after Mona left Homer at a young age and run off with a jester, Grampa brought up Homer by himself without hesitation and he reveals his true nature. In the season four episode, "The Front", Grampa admits to head of Itchy and Scratchy studios, Roger Myers Jr., that he worked as a cranberry silo nightwatchman for forty-years.