"Grandpa," A Truly Wise Man

My great grandfather, or as I always thought of him, "Grandpa" was an amazing man. He was "Grandpa" to us because he had raised my mother and her brother and sister when their parents died during a plague that swept the US in the early 1900"s.

He told me that he read about Texas as a child and spent his entire youth working toward getting there. When he landed from Ireland in New York at the age of 17 in 1882, he immediately headed for Texas to become a cowboy. In my youth I learned how this now very old man, the son of a cobbler, seemed to accomplish whatever he set out to do so I was not surprised to learn that in a month he had worked his way to Texas and found a job on a ranch.

I laughed when he told me that his first job had been as a cook's helper on a fairly large ranch. It was funny because that was the first job he gave me when I declared that I wanted to be a cowboy on his 17,000 acre ranch at the ripe old age of ten. Seemed I had to earn my first horse and job as a cowboy just as he had.

What made Grandpa amazing was not the many, many accomplishments of his life, but the kindness and wisdom that he never failed to exhibit along with his great success. He enjoyed every challenge life had and loved to laugh. I have always thought that it was these qualities that helped him live to the ripe old age of 98 and be healthy as can be until two weeks before he died.

Now that you have the background on this wonderful guy, I'll start with some of the tales about him. They won't be in chronological order, just sort of random as they pop into my mind.

One of the funniest is one told by my Mom. Seems at age 90 Grandpa had gotten a speeding ticket on his way from his ranch to his home in town. My Mom went to court with him and the judge told him he was too old to drive and he was going to take Grandpa's license away. My Grandpa stood up in court and told the judge that the only person senile in that room was the judge if he thought he was going to take his license away. He proceeded to tell him that the judge seemed to be forgetting that he, my Grandpa, got the judge appointed and by God, he still had the political clout to get him removed. He then proceeded to tell the judge that maybe he was too young to have the wisdom necessary to be a judge (my Mom thought the judge was in his 60's).

Well, the judge backed down and gave Grandpa a special license that allowed him to get from town to his ranch...but then that's another story.


To be Continued