Humor Me a Minute

I had a good, long talk with my Grandfather Green yesterday.

Keep reading; it gets interesting. I promise. I think.

Grandpa was born on the eve of the Great War, and was old enough, educated enough, and experienced enough to be offered a Navy command in World War II. The War Labor Board wouldn’t let him take it — running a steel mill was considered more important to the war effort than being just another destroyer skipper. And imagine that — a war so big there was a government agency telling you what jobs you couldn’t take.

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It turns out some of the work he did at Combustion Engineering was vital to the Manhattan Project, so I suppose the WLB was right to make him stay put.

Talking to him, all that came back to me. Here’s a man with 80-plus years of perspective, someone who has built tools of war for his country, a Reformed Jew who is also a fully-assimilated American. I figured he had to have some incisive things to say about the Current Mess, some angle I’d missed due to my youth and inexperience.

He’s been to Israel, he’s traveled the world, he’s seen many more wonders and horrors than you or I. Surely, he’d give me some pearls to pass along to you. I dialed his number with quite some eagerness.

We talked about the wedding, the Jamaica honeymoon plans, how lovely and wonderful and perfectly suitable Melissa is, and when we’re planning on giving him a great-grandchild. We talked of some sadder family news, and we just talked to each other. We did not speak of wars past or present.

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In short, we talked about the important things. And it reminded me that we don’t talk nearly often enough.

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