The Sentinel, My Grandpa

      My grandpa was an interesting man who lived a wonderful life with a multitude of experiences.

      He was orphaned when he was a few days old, left on the steps of a Cahholic nuns convent. They raised him until he was about 8 years old and then shipped him off to a family in Missouri that had a farm. He was informed immediately when they plucked him off the train that he would not be their adoptive son, but rather a companion for their other son. I think that was a rough start for a child.

      He eventually left those people and went to Saint Louis. There he took a liking to baseball. He became a member of the old Saint Louis Browns professional baseball team. He was a catcher on the team. He admitted he was not the best catcher, but he was a good hitter and that’s what the team needed. I do not know how long he played for them. He did tell me that back in the early 1900’s teams did not make a lot of money so many of the players were from well-to-do families and could afford to indulge themselves playing ball.

      He left the team to make some money to live on. He became a traveling salesman. He would get on the train in Saint Louis and go in every direction making sales for his company. He did mention a lot of trips to Louisville, Kentucky, but did not elaborate on that. Now at my age, I do kind of wonder about that. Another place he traveled to frequently was Detroit, Michigan. After grandma died in 1957, he started writing letters to a woman he knew in Detroit and made a few trips up there to visit with her.

      During the latter days of prohibition he and his buddy named Whitey (he had snow white hair) ran bootleg liquor. The great depression starting in 1929 put over a million people out of work and a man has to feed his family however he can. If a delivery was close by and not a large order, they would hide the whiskey under the baby in a stroller to make the delivery. For larger orders, Whitey had an old Ford they used for deliveries. The Ford had a hole cut in the floorboards so if they were ever pursued by the police they could dump the whiskey out to remove the evidence. Once a patrol car started following them for a time long enough to make Whitey and grandpa nervous, so grandpa dumped the whiskey out through the floorboards. The police did not stop them and Whitey got miffed that grandpa dumped their load out of the car.

      Grandpa was a devoutly religious man. He always went to church services and was always on time. He never went to sleep at night without first getting down on his knees to pray. I have no idea of what he prayed for, but he did pray every night. The best thing about him was he always had time to talk with me no matter where or when I wanted his advice and wisdom. He was very well read and was an intelligent yet an unassuming man. He was a good example for me to follow, though I have fallen short of being a mirror image of him. He was more a father to me than my biological father ever was. A child can never ask for more than the attention and the knowledge of a loving adult in their life.