A Grandfather

His face was a lesson in life formed by perseverance against, as he termed it, a tough world. A child born when Victoria sat on England's Throne and brought up by the streets of New York, orphan by alcoholic parents at the ripe old age of nine. He made his home in a stable, learned to drive horses and eventually trucks when they were invented. An early Teamster Organizer at a time such actions could cost you your life and regardless of what history may say about Jimmy Hoffa he liked the man and what he did for truckers. I still have his Teamster Union Card of which he was very proud.

By every account he should have been a street tough. But here is the catch or rub, as he liked to say. He was kind and gentle, completely forgiving, eager to help anyone in deed or in word and never spoke a word in anger. Well, that's not entirely true. If he hit his finger with a hammer or skinned his knuckles when a wrench slipped he had a very pungent way of saying, "you bastard you"! I was his shadow and by the time I was three years old I had picked up this expression to express my displeasure when something didn't work quite the way I wanted it to. I had a lot of soap in my mouth from an early age.   

The old man took me everywhere. We saw the Empire State Building, the Rail Road Yards (he got me a ride on a steam engine), the Docks of New York, the Bowery and the bums. And he always put a dime in my hand to give to a guy asking a handout. I think I got a blessing from every derelict in New York during that time. And let me tell you, it hasn't hurt.   

Now a saint he wasn't. If you were a "bad egg" then he wanted noting to do with you. Not now, not ever, he was nobodies fool. He also had a particular fondness for Four Roses Whisky and Chesterfield Cigarettes (butts). He drank the whisky by the shot. One when he came home from work, one after dinner and one about eight thirty in the evening. I have never then or since seen someone able to pour a shot as full as he did. The elasticity of the liquid was stretched to the limit a quarter inch above the rime of the glass and he would pick it up without spilling a drop and shoot it down.

As I said before, I was his shadow standing head high to his hip back then. I imitated everything he did good and bad so he would save exactly two drops of whisky in the bottom of the shot glass for me to have my shot. Honestly I could barely taste it by the time it dripped into my mouth but as you may imagine this was frowned upon by others, particularly my Grand Mother. We had to sneak my shots from then on, which naturally made them even more fun for both of us. (I no longer do shots. I quit at about seven years old and do not really have a taste for it anymore. But I would do a real one with the old man if he were here.)

He taught me about life. The way it should be and the way it was. He showed me what was up and what was down, how to love and how to be loved. A formal education he did not have, but in lessons of life he had a PhD.  I miss the old man and look forward to seeing him again. We haven't been fishing in a very long time.