220510 Old Wooden Ear

I was just a boy when this event happened.
It was a sad day for me.

When I was a boy my grandfather was still working at the post office. The workers at Wade Station in Saint Louis had a club. They got together once a month to play cards. Each club member would in turn host the card party. One summer it was my grandfather’s turn to host the event. He had never been able to host it before because he lived with our family and didn’t have a home of his own to use, but he and my Father had bought a clubhouse on a slough off of the Mississippi and the clubhouse being half his, grandpa was happy to host the party. He employed me as a runner. I was to get drinks for the players. We had several ice chests and they were filled with all kinds of beer and mixes for whiskey. I didn’t know much about mixing drinks, but the club members were more than willing to tell me how to mix their favorite booze. My grandfather told me it would be fun and that the players would tip me some change for getting them drinks. I didn’t mind doing it because I liked being around grownups and hearing their stories. As memory serves, the post office workers were more than a little tight with their change going for tips to a young boy, but grandpa did a lot for me and this was my opportunity to pay a little back.

I was busy the entire afternoon running to the ice chests for beer for those guys. It was fun until late afternoon when one of the men made a comment about my grandpa. I don’t really remember the entire comment, but my grandpa was hard of hearing and wore a hearing aid, and this postal worker included “old wooden ear” in his commentary. I was just a boy of 12 and didn’t know what to do. I certainly couldn’t stand up to this grown man and I didn’t want to hurt my grandpa’s feelings by telling him, but it hurt me to hear that then and now that I’m 76 years old, I still hear those hurtful words. I’ve lived with them for 64 years now.

My Grandpa was one of the greatest men I ever knew. There was no end to the kindness he had for me. We were fishing buddies when I was young. We shared our thoughts, him as Socrates and me as his protégé. No matter day or night he always had time for me. He was a great letter writer. He wrote letters to friends all over the country and Canada. But if I chose to enter his room, he was always willing to stop his reading or writing and listen to me, to teach me. I never remember him uttering foul language, never heard him complain. He took me to church and he lived his religion. He never went to bed without first getting down on his knees and praying. He wrote letters to me the entire time I was overseas, no matter where. He sent me stamps so I could have no excuse not to write to my Mother. When I was home on leave he loaned me his car so I could go wherever I wanted. He never bragged to me about his exploits, but always about his son and daughters, one of which was my mother.

If I could remember all he did for me alone I could write for a year, but I can’t remember it all. He was good to the last. He developed a cancer in the bone of his knee and though he was too old and too frail for the needed surgery, he couldn’t face being an invali, as my grandmother, his wife, was an invalid for 13 years, requiring constant care from my mother and grandfather; he couldn’t face the same fate, so he signed up for surgery, looked at my mother and said: “I just signed my death warrant.” The surgery was a success, but the patient never recovered from the anesthesia.

My Dad, and I, my Brother Tom, my Uncle Kenny, my Uncle Tom and my cousin carried his casket to his gravesite. I wept uncontrollably but when I turned around I saw them crying too. I had never seen any of them cry before or after. That’s the kind of man my grandpa was. He and Joyce are the ones I think about every day of my life. I know when I am on my deathbed I will see him and Joyce there to take me away.