Granddad

I was fortunate to grow up with two grandfathers in my young life. They were similar, but very different. I called both of them by the identical name…Granddad.  That’s it…just Granddad.  I made no distinction unless I was referencing one of them, for clarity’s sake, to someone else. Then, it would be Granddad Howard or Granddad Leonard. 

Granddad Howard was my father’s dad…the Morgan side. They came to the San Joaquin Valley in central California in the 1930’s from Tennessee…near Lawrenceburg. In Tennessee, they lived in a cabin in the woods and bore a striking resemblance to the famous Jed Clampett TV family. Granddad bought farmland in the famed San Joaquin Valley and grew cotton, alfalfa, and raisin grapes, along with a few head of livestock and always one milk cow. They were not wealthy, but being land owners, they made a decent living and had an adequate investment when the time came to retire, sell out and move to the coast.

Granddad Leonard was my mother’s father. They were the Kilcrease side. He also migrated with his family in the 1930’s to California. He was from the Texas panhandle, not too far from Oklahoma. They were not land owners.  They always lived at the mercy of someone else’s generosity, or lack thereof. They were honest folks, and very hard workers. An ironclad contract was no better than Granddad’s simple yes or no. Granddad Leonard would make you think of John Steinbeck’s sharecropping, hardworking character, Pa Joad, and his family in the terrific novel, The Grapes of Wrath. Granddad was a janitor at my grade school, and my bus driver.  It was a low paying job, but he never treated it as such. He gave it all he had…every single day.

These two men greatly influenced me…very similar in that they were both down home country through and through, but vastly different in how their lives played out.  They were my Tennessee granddad and my Texas granddad. I suppose it would take a book to include all my memories of these unique men, and my experiences growing up around them. Perhaps someday that will come to pass.  I owe them a debt of love and gratitude that cannot be calculated. I came from very good bones.