Grandfather says he has seen most of his friends buried in recent years. Here is a eulogy that Grandfather delivered for a very dear friend at his memorial service, shortly after the attack on the World Trade Center in NYC:
Wayne Cowder leaves ...
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Grandfather Says: Spelling Bee
Grandfather says he is blessed with a good memory and enough self-assurance that it's not a curse; little things from long ago come to mind.
When he was six years old, Grandfather learned to read by the phonic method: "sound it out."
Well, ...
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Grandfather Says: My First Job as a Newspaper Boy
Grandfather says when he was 13 or so, he got his first job: a newspaper boy for the Detroit Free Press. They distributed newspapers to homes through the 1950s.
Each boy had his own route, about a mile along a street, and his papers were delivered ...
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Grandfather Says: Happiness and Living in the Right Mold
How do you fit your mold?
Grandfather says life can be thought of as a mold, different for each of us, but constraining, whether we like it or not.
The key to happiness, in his opinion, is to live in the right mold.
Grandfather's mold is ...
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Grandfather Says: A Chicken Run for the Henhouse
Grandfather says when he got engaged to be married in 2008, his bride-to-be insisted on bringing her cat and chickens with her. Well, housing the cat required no special arrangement, but the chickens were another matter.
Grandfather says he ...
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Grandfather Says: Memories of a Budding Shipwright
Grandfather has written before about stone and wood -- this one's about water. Specifically, bodies of water and how he's enjoyed them over the years.
Described earlier were Cape Hatteras on the shores of the Atlantic; the Lynn canal between ...
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Grandfather Says: A Trophy for the Natural
When Grandfather was 13 or so, playground baseball/softball -- it just depended who showed up with what kind of ball and bat -- began to invade his young life.
He remembers one of his novice catastrophes: a baseball went right over his glove and ...
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Grandfather Says: Preparing for Hard Times
Grandfather says he thinks there are some tough years ahead.
He says be creative and live better as those years go by.
B F Goodrich & Co. built a specialty rubber plant here, fabricating mostly aircraft and military equipment, about 50 ...
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Grandfather Says: There Is No Escape From the Present
It's highly unfashionable -- if not downright politically incorrect -- to live in the past, but Grandfather doesn't think so.
He believes US civilization reached its zenith in the third quarter of the twentieth century, when the nation was unified ...
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Grandfather Says: Some Thoughts on Building a Life-Long Homestead
Grandfather would like, first off, to do his best to convince young people that they can put their life, fortune and sacred honor into their life-long homestead. It's a state of mind which was the norm as the settlers expanded West in the 19th ...
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Grandfather Says: Remembering Grandfather’s Father
Grandfather says his father has been departed for more than 60 years now (may God rest his soul), but Grandfather well remembers him. He was an honor student in high school and continued that way later, at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in ...
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Grandfather Says: Western Civilization Is Out of Fashion
Western civilization seems unfashionable in most colleges these days. "Diversity" is now the revealed truth.
Anyway, Grandfather trotted out an old college textbook of his, Readings in Western Civilization, Knoles and Snyder, J.B. Lippincott 1951, ...
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Grandfather Says: A Few Words on Our Nation’s Travails
Len has asked me to write about what I see as the prospects for our nation. If I were a believer in "credentials" I would desist, but I'm not. What I am is a man who has lived his life as independently of current fashion as possible and does not care ...
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Grandfather Says: Musings on an Old-Time Liberal Education
An early 19th century liberal education mandated studies in classical literature, now abandoned -- and sometimes scorned -- in most "universities."
Grandfathers Father, Ralph the First, studied for the ministry at the Southern Baptist Theological ...
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Grandfather Says: A Personal Portrait of My Time In Bergamo, Italy
He remembers Bergamo, Italy. It's in the mountainous North of Italy, just South of the Swiss border and about midway between Maranello, where the incomparable Ferrari automobiles are manufactured and Milan, home of the La Scalla opera house, where ...
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Grandfather Says: The Boy Is ‘Just Who He Is’
Grandfather says his preparing for retirement boiled down to supporting and, to the extent needed, enabling the family members (particularly the wife -- permanent fixture -- kids, temporary) to live the lives they wanted to live in their best ...
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Grandfather Says: Grandfather’s Puppy
About a year and a half ago, Grandfather got himself a puppy! A companion for him as he enters his dotage.
The little guy is a Maltese.
Clyde is a great little guy. Maltese are very small; four to seven pounds is the normal weight in ...
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Grandfather Says: The Rise of the Machines
Already computers are more powerful than humans in some cases ... Technology is just another means of evolution. We are changing the definition of what it is to be human.
- roboticist Hiroshi Ishiguro
Grandfather thinks back sixty ago, in a young ...
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Grandfather Says: Twas a Time When Coal Was Used to Heat Houses
In 1930's Detroit, coal was the predominant fuel used for heating in the winter. The coal was delivered at grandfather's house by a chute from a coal delivery truck. The coal went through a basement window into a small room called the "coal bin." The ...
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Grandfather Says: Run, Run, Rudolph!
Back when Grandfather was a young buck, 60 or so, he walked behind a mule train on the Bright Angel trail halfway to the bottom of the Grand Canyon.
Grandmother rode a mule named "Rudolph." Grandfather had to walk, because the mule skinners said ...
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