Wed Nov 03 2010
For some reason as I drove in to work today I started thinking about my grandfather, on my dad’s side. He passed away in the early eighties. I’ve heard bits and pieces of his story and it’s fascinating. Apparently he grew up extremely poor in the South (in Cotton Plant, Arkansas), worked hard, and eventually earned his PhD from Yale in Chemistry. He worked for a few petrochemical companies, and eventually started a charcoal briquet business. He left his four sons (one of them my dad, obviously) with many stories that they still tell every now and then when they get together or sling emails around, which I pick up on here and there, bits and pieces. Such as:
Running a charcoal briquet business had a few unforeseen perils — when being transported on freight trains, for example, they could burst into flames. Bad.
When landing your cloth-covered plane in a farmer’s field in Mexico, don’t leave said plane unattended while you hike out for help. The natives will literally cut the cloth off the plane.
Things like that. His sons still speak of him in a tone I don’t hear them use elsewhere, reverential yet good humored, maybe a touch awestruck. I think my grandfather was a real hero to his sons. He apparently was just one of those larger-than-life characters. Y0u wouldn’t believe some of the stories that have come down. He used to ram into the backs of cars in front of him to get them to speed up. Think about that. Driving down the highway, nudging into the bumper of the car in front of you at 60 mph. Try to do that today and live to tell about it.
My grandfather built a house in the Bay area of San Francisco, overlooking what is now Stanford University. I’ve been to the house once, it is (now) a multi-million dollar property in the fancy part of San Francisco. My dad and uncles have fond memories of that home. At some point it got knocked off its foundation by an earthquake, and when I was there, it sat unoccupied. My grandfather sold the house somewhere along the way, when things got tough in the briquet business.
Then I started thinking about my own dad, who also worked very hard, and put himself through Stanford and MIT. Like his father, he studied chemistry, and had, by all accounts, a very successful career as a chemical engineer for some sort of large corporation thing. I was at his retirement party, the one they threw for him at work, and was simply stunned. At some point the emcee opened the mic for folks to share whatever it was they wanted to share. Usually this is the point in retirement parties where folks shuffle their feet, look down at their punch, and maybe a guy or two, like the dude’s boss, goes up to say some kind words. But I was stunned, floored, that people practically fell over themselves to get in line for the mic. There was literally a line of people waiting to share what they had to say about my dad. Now that right there is a life well lived, I don’t care who you are. It was such a pleasure to see that professional side of my dad’s life.