My Grandfather's Birthday

Today would have been the birthday of my grandfather on my mother's side of the family. He would have been 112.

He was a great man, in his quiet way. He taught me chess and encouraged me appreciate his stamp collection,  which helped to pique my curiosity of history and the various cultures of the world.  He also had an impressive personal library,  and that before the age of the internet,  when obtaining such things was much more difficult and expensive.

Finally,  he also got me into NFL football. However, he and my brother proved to be fans of the Jets, while I leaned more towards the Giants. Never hated the Jets (never saw the point of hating them), and consider them my second favorite team. But some of the earliest games that I remember watching were with my grandfather, particularly a game between the Giants and Jets, and another between the Giants and Eagles.

There are things, generally subtle things, that sometimes instantly remind you of someone who had a profound impact on you. For me, the distinctive scent of the tobacco from his pipe, which was Borkum Riff whiskey. In fact, I just took a pause from writing this to get the also distinctive tin that I obtained some years ago, and where I keep a small pouch of the stuff that I also got some years ago, while on a trip to Massachusetts (I believe it was at Plymouth). Often, he would smoke that while playing a quiet game of chess, both of which would be one of those things for which I best remember him. The first chess matches that I ever played were against him. He would tend to whistle softly, almost without the whistling. Just kind of airy tunes that you could never make out. Unfortunately, he as not all that good, and lost more often - even far more often - than he won. Yet, here was another lesson that he taught me: he was a good sport, and simply accepted the results. The game was never really more than a game with him.

After all of these years, I still think about him fairly often. He was one of the most calming influences of my own childhood, and always good natured and gentle. Again, in his quiet way, he lived a life that felt like something to strive for. His personal library was not for show. He actually was a learned man, and could discuss many things intelligently, in an informed and capable manner. I believe that my own intellectual curiosity, something that has stretched well beyond my own childhood now, may have begun due to his influence. His field of expertise was biology, but his books were not limited to just that field. I remember perusing his library years after his death in 1989, and being surprised by the range of the books. There were some books by Kurt Vonnegut in there, who by then had become one of my own favorite authors. And again, the stamp collection meant a lot to me. It was almost like capturing a miniature collection of fine art and history within the binders of a given stamp album. Looking at those pages, you almost felt like you were literally getting a taste of the world, seeing what each individual country valued the most, glimpsing important events, seeing how they saw themselves. I still have maintained a stamp collection to this day, but it began with him.