Male Elders

My Dad had class. His kind of star quality shined quietly and sure. Throughout his life he met all challenges, intelligently, dispassionately. Whether it was dealing with Mom’s deterioration, various traumas visited upon him by his kids (not the least of which was me), or financial strains, he always kept his poise and equanimity. His patience, like his hospitality, was legendary. I never heard him complain about the psychedelic music blaring on the radio as he drove me somewhere; and to my friends he was ever the accommodating and cheerful host. He was a man of great faith—a faith that showed he knew his own limits, a faith that knew how to unblinkingly dispatch unnecessary worry to a power greater than himself. Never preachy, still, he displayed an ethical certitude about things in a way that epitomized and defined his generation. His voice came through to me in the letters he wrote to me over the years. It was a voice that was an eternal flame of hope and kind encouragement, as I bungled from one venture to another.

Yes, in the late ‘60s and ‘70s I proved to be quite the bungling fool as I inched my way forward in life. Our whole family was coming apart then due to Mom’s Alzheimer’s. And this was occurring at the exact same time society was unraveling. By the early ‘70s, I for one was on a rough and rocky road indeed. 

 

In early August, 1974, President Richard M. Nixon resigned. At that time I was half renting/half squatting in a room at a beach house on 7^th Street in Bethany. It was being rehabbed by Chris Minnick, an upper classman I had known at Gonzaga. As I recall, I had ridden out there on my blue, 350 Yamaha YR1 motorcycle. It had recently rained. On the way, as I was crossing over some railroad tracks, my bike skidded and I almost lost control. I think I threw my leg out to keep from falling over—or maybe I just threw my weight to the other side. Anyway, I could have been severely injured but I managed to right myself and just kept on going. Such were the haphazard, care-free days of this 20-year old.

Nixon had been the adversary of our family hero, John F. Kennedy. For the Susses Nixon represented everything that was old-fashioned and stupid. And in 1974 I remember taking sides against Nixon regarding the Watergate fiasco. Like almost everybody I knew, I unthinkingly believed the media narrative. (At the time, only insiders could have known any better.)  And so Nixon’s resignation seemed like a good thing to me at the time, though I was also kind of “ho-hum” about it. Beach bum that I was, I was too distracted at the time to dwell on it much.

I recall that in the foyer of Minnick’s beach house were a bunch of discarded paperbacks. I picked up one, Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov and really started getting into it. I remember identifying somewhat with the Karamazov brother named “Alyosha.” I was about the same age as this character and I admired in him the same sort of ideals to which I too aspired!  As a result, I couldn’t put the book down. But it is a long novel (as all of Dostoevsky’s novels are) and I still had a long way to go when I returned home.

When I got back, my grandfather asked me if I would drive him down to Orlando, Florida. He wanted to check on his house down there and also wanted me to help him with any repairs it might need. I agreed and within a day or so we left, with me at the wheel of his black 1965 Lincoln Continental, albeit without a radio. (My grandfather had disconnected the radio right after he bought it; I thought it was because he wouldn’t stand for the “noise” of what was being broadcast, though he never admitted any particular reason to me for doing so other than saying he “didn’t like it.”)     

As with my own father, my grandfather McGuire also had a certain class, though it was a class of another sort. We grandchildren called him “Grandpap.” His hard, hidden strength of character shone in your face none-the-less. In fact it almost blinded you. And yet I knew him only in his elder years. By then, the vagaries of life had softened him somewhat. Still, he was hard-boiled—the product of a no-nonsense boyhood spent on the family farm. He still chewed tobacco—Mail Pouch Tobacco—(and of course spit tobacco juice) until the day he died, about four years after our excursion together. I remember that as a child I had fallen on the street and skinned the palm of my hand while running around to get into the car. When I climbed into the back seat where Grandpap was, he took hold of my palm, looked at the scrape, then spat some tobacco juice on it and rubbed it in. The shock of seeing him spit on me staunched my tears immediately.

Grandpap had a playful side too that bordered on the poetic, as evidenced in some of the letters he left behind. (Go seek them out and ye shall find this to be true.) He enjoyed a good belly-laugh. Often he would chuckle, finding humor in things when it suited him. But more than anything else, what comes to mind when I think of Grandpap was that he was simple and sensible. And he was essentially a moralist. But, like Dad, he wasn’t preachy, at least not all that much, though his temper wasn’t as controlled. If provoked he might easily bark at you. Notwithstanding his seemingly cold, hard exterior there lurked a beautiful goodness that shined through. Others I know might not agree, but I always thought so. Maybe it was the Irish in him, confounded by that stern Germanic blood also running through his veins that made him a bit of a walking contradiction. I preferred to simply think of him as “old school” in his outlook.

And so we went on our journey to Florida. It was the one and only time we ever spent together, just the two of us. I drove us down there. Then the daily work began. He organized things and sort of supervised from his fold-out chair. I remember doing some painting and some screen repair. I’ve always enjoyed staying busy and I liked feeling useful to him. In the evening I’d have a beer or two (that he would buy, of course).

Grandpap forever had his nose in a newspaper. And while he read his paper I was slogging through The Brothers Karamazov. One day an old friend of Grandpap’s by the name of Paul Onda dropped by. Onda was a stump-of-a-man, a broad-faced, hard-working dynamo. I recall he had a ready smile and a ready wit. I understood immediately why Grandpap found him to be pleasant company. I imagined Onda felt the same way about Grandpap, who also knew a lot about building and working hard and who also enjoyed a good laugh. We spent an evening or two in rambling conversation. Although I was more of a spectator than a participant, it seemed like good fellowship all the way around.

Coming back home we were traveling on a typical two-lane rural road of the type you often find in Florida, with deep culverts on either side of the roadway, i.e., drainage ditches. There was very little shoulder. It began raining hard. In fact, soon it became quite the tropical downpour. I, of course, put the windshield wipers on. But as we proceeded along, the wipers suddenly stopped working! The whole windshield became one big blur. I couldn’t see a thing. So I decelerated, and as I did so, I put on the emergency flashers and pulled gently over to the side of the road, being careful not to fall into the culvert but trying not to stick too far out into the road. As luck would have it, no one slammed into us while we waited for the rain to let up.

  

Grandpap pulled out a map and told me to head for a nearby town, pointing out the way as we went. We soon pulled into the town and found a garage. Grandpap got out and talked to the mechanic, and the next thing I knew the car was in the bay and Grandpap was in there overseeing the mechanic as he worked away on the wipers. It wasn’t long before he finished up. With the wipers fixed we started back on our way. Grandpap told me to continue on, away from the direction we had come. I said, “But Grandpap, we came in from the other direction,” and I headed back that way. In his inimitable, hoarse, scolding voice he exclaimed, “Stop the car!” So I stopped, then made a U-turn. Sure enough, he was right. The highway going north picked up on the other side of town.

 

When we arrived back in Maryland and pulled up to his house he reached for his wallet. He took out the remainder of the cash there, perhaps $30 or so, and handed it to me. I heard later from my aunt that he told her, “You know, Jack’s not as wild as I thought he was.” That was the nicest thing I ever heard him say about me and it made me feel good to hear that.

 

I can’t say I ever had a similar one-on-one trip like that with my Dad. After all, I was one of eight kids, he was a busy professional man, and most trips we took were back to his hometown of Springfield, Massachusetts, where his mother and siblings still lived.

 

My father was a Democrat, a liberal; my grandfather was a Republican, a conservative. Neither of them talked much about their political sensibilities. But I recall my father’s admiration for Franklin Roosevelt, while Grandpap thought Roosevelt was a curse upon this country (as I do). And I remember asking my Dad what left wing and right wing meant. I think he used the typical, well-worn Commie vs. Nazi analogy in the end. And when I asked him where he stood, he said that he thought it was best to stay somewhere in the middle. I don’t think I ever asked Grandpap that same question, but now I wish I had.

 

During his lifetime Dad worked mostly for the federal or state governments; Grandpap worked in the private sector, eventually for himself. They were both good men but also different men whose distinct life paths shaped their visions and values. Their lifeways were also shaped by what they were personally able to do.

 As mentioned, Grandpap was knowledgeable about building; he had studied engineering in college and had built a few structures in his lifetime. Then he went into business, saved his money, kept his credit, invested in the stock market, and eventually became a wealthy, self-made man who often stated, "Your grandmother and I have lived under the poverty level all of our lives and we've never wanted for anything." In other words he eschewed easy credit and his life remained always simple, the antithesis of conspicuous consumption. And Grandpap's values never strayed far from his humble beginnings.

 

Dad, being the son of Lebanese Christian immigrants, came from humble beginnings himself. He exhibited basic and solid carpentry skills and he had a natural ability to draw. (I know this because of the soap box derby he built for me and my brothers, among other things, and the drawings of stuff he would do for us kids upon request.) He was a U.S. Naval Officer, a government and anti-trust lawyer, and retired as an administrative law judge for the State of New York. The home he made for us was not grand, by any means, but was a suitable testament to his professional station in life.

 

They both shared an appreciation for humor. Neither one shied away from working or complained about much of anything. They each loved their wives and were completely dedicated husbands.

In the final analysis, what I can say about them both is this: In their own ways they shined while the sun shone down upon them and I loved them. Even if it was by loose association (osmosis) I learned a lot from being around them.

 

In these days when the power of women is ascendant and the power of men is demeaned and downplayed it is more important than ever to recognize and revere one’s father, grandfather(s) and one’s forefathers as far back (and as much) as it is possible to know.