Stealing down the stairs, the young boy listened to the rustle of morning dishes. At the bottom, he paused and carefully peered into the living room. In one corner, a floor lamp illuminated an old man deeply absorbed in his morning paper. The boy quietly approached and tugged the man’s freshly starched sleeve. Startled, the man peered over his glasses at the intrusion, the young whippersnapper that dared to disturb his reading.

The man had a reputation as strait-laced, yet fair. After a long career, many simply called him Mr. Tower. In fact, forty years after his death, some would still call him that. His children, as if they had stepped out a Jane Austin novel, addressed him as Father, as did his wife. His grandchildren called him Grandfather. It was one of those youngsters who now tugged at his sleeve.

The old man’s eyes twinkled; folding his paper, he patted his lap. “Shall we read the educational section?” he asked.

The boy eagerly scrambled up and made himself comfortable. Turning to the comics, the man began to read in his soft-spoken voice. Fifty years later the boy’s memory of that voice remains vivid. At the time neither realized the significance of that moment. To them it was just another morning in 1959, yet, in that brief instant, the mystic chords of memory and history combined with the boy’s unwritten future.

Grandfather’s memory twisted deep into the past, intertwining with the memories of his parents and his grandparents. Born in 1899, he lived through the social and economic upheaval that rocked America’s 20th century.

In his youth, he rubbed elbows with the aging veterans of the Civil War, and in his twilight knew men who served in Viet Nam. As a boy, he knew the Ohio River as a primary mode of transportation. With the passage of time, he saw the river supplanted by the railroads and the railroads by the interstate. The dirt roads and horse-drawn wagons of his childhood became teeming ribbons of concrete. The sky, once the sole domain of the birds, became the province of aviators, and he saw men walk on the moon. He survived the influenza epidemic of WWI, the loss of a wife and two children, and the Great Depression. Through it all, he never lost faith in God or his fellow man.

In today’s anything-goes world names like Mr. Tower, Father, Grandfather sound odd, too formal for casual use.  At the time, I didn’t think much of it. It was simply a curious throwback to a more reserved age. Looking back, I realize that it was a sign of respect for a former teacher, community leader, and genuinely good man.

Faced with today’s social and world turmoil, I am strangely comforted by the knowledge that such upheaval is not new.  Our world, our nation, and our ancestors survived direr circumstances long before my time. This knowledge gives me hope that God willing, good men and women will again prevail.

The next time my grandchildren crawl on my lap, I will read to them, and remember a time, long long ago, when a small boy climbed onto his Grandfather’s lap.

David L Dahl.
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