<\/p>\n
A Humble Tribute to the Greatest Man I\u2019ve Ever Known<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n On February 26, 1971, the greatest man I have ever known passed away. And though he passed away that terrible February night – a night I’ll never forget – he lives on in my heart and my memory.\u00a0 There hasn\u2019t been a day that has gone by in these last fifty-three years that I have not thought of him. He might not have been a great man in the eyes of the world, and he wasn\u2019t famous, but he was the greatest man I have ever known.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n On the fifty-third anniversary of his death, this is my humble tribute to my grandfather\u2026 the greatest man I\u2019ve ever known.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n I\u2019ve seen statues of great men: Lincoln, Washington, Roosevelt, Pasteur, Churchill, and others. They were all heroes in their time.<\/span><\/p>\n I\u2019ve met famous politicians. But I have never considered any of them my heroes though. Politicians today are a breed apart from ordinary folks. That\u2019s a good thing, I think. Whenever I hear a politician speak, I watch their eyes as they read the teleprompter and I wonder if they have any sincerity at all in their hearts. They\u2019re reciting words. Just words. Is it just me? It\u2019s my jaded mind I bet. Whatever they may be, I don\u2019t consider any politician a hero or great man. They may be a lot of things, but \u201chero\u201d isn\u2019t one of them.<\/span><\/p>\n I see kids, and even grown men and women, wearing the jerseys of their favorite sports heroes. I shudder. Some of these sports heroes aren\u2019t heroes at all, they\u2019re not even decent human beings. Some people idolize them because they can kick a ball, hit a ball, run with a ball, throw a ball, or batter an opponent into senselessness. Some are idolized because they possess decadent wealth and dazzling fame. What a scanty litany upon which to build a hero.<\/span><\/p>\n And, then we have actors, singers, and other entertainers. Most of them became heroes because they looked better than Fred or Sally at the local grocery store. We idolize their appearance and oftentimes their skills. But heroes? Hardly.<\/span><\/p>\n What about those great men and women to whom we\u2019ve erected statues? I didn\u2019t know any of them \u2013 but indeed some must have been great heroes of their time. At least history tells us so. But I didn\u2019t know them.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0I live in a world today where so-called heroes are a dime a dozen. But, in this era of instantaneous insincerity, superficiality, and selfishness, it\u2019s hard to find a real hero, I’m sad to say.<\/span><\/p>\n I consider myself lucky though because I do have a hero. And he\u2019s a real hero too.<\/span><\/p>\n He wasn\u2019t famous. Few have ever heard of him. Just a couple of neighbors, co-workers, and friends. He wasn\u2019t much to look at. In a room full of people, I doubt any of you would have noticed him. Indeed, he was short, fat, and bald. And he wore bifocals in horn-rimmed frames. He ate too much, ate too often, and didn\u2019t exercise at all. And boy! Did he love ice cream!<\/span><\/p>\n Despite all that, he is a hero. My hero. <\/span><\/p>\n Because he was in my life, my world is a better place. And, because of him, my kids\u2019 worlds, are better places too \u2013even though, I\u2019m sorry to say, that neither of my sons got the chance to meet my hero.<\/span><\/p>\n My hero died fifty-three years ago \u2013 on February 26, 1971.\u00a0 He walked into the bathroom and collapsed on the floor – he died instantly. I was there. I saw his vacant eyes and still chest. <\/span><\/p>\n But there has not been a single day that has passed since then that I have not thought of him. I haven\u2019t visited his grave very much \u2013 I can\u2019t remember the last time I was there. He is not in some cold grave –\u00a0 he is with me every day.<\/span><\/p>\n I often find myself asking his advice knowing somehow, he\u2019s listening. I feel him nearby always. He\u2019s alive in my mind and he\u2019s alive in my world and that\u2019s the greatest tribute and honor I can give him.<\/span><\/p>\n My hero is someone you don\u2019t know, and I\u2019m sorry for that. I wish you could know him. My hero is my grandfather. He\u2019s the greatest man I have ever known.<\/span><\/p>\n He didn\u2019t hit baseballs and he didn\u2019t kick soccer balls or score game-winning touchdowns. He didn\u2019t write novels, or star in movies, or entertain folks on television. He wasn\u2019t a politician. He didn\u2019t sing very well. He wasn\u2019t handsome or dashing, or even sophisticated. He wasn\u2019t the least bit famous. But that makes him even more special because he was such an uncommon man. I\u2019m honored to have known him. I\u2019m proud to call him my hero.<\/span><\/p>\n Though decades have passed since he died, I can remember those soft summer nights when he would take me for walks. I was just a little kid, perhaps five or six. Sometimes we\u2019d walk to Battery Park on Sandusky Bay and sit on the park bench for what seemed an eternity watching the ships and the sailboats on the bay on many soft summer nights \u2013 and I enjoyed every minute of it.<\/span><\/p>\n He\u2019d tell me stories and we\u2019d talk about books, inventions, and other things which he knew interested me. He cared about me; he cared enough to care to talk about what I wanted to talk about even when I was very young. <\/span><\/p>\n Back when I was a kid growing up, June bugs, on certain nights in summer, would cover everything by the bay. They were harmless, benign, and strange-looking insects. Sometimes they would become so thick, if you weren\u2019t careful, you\u2019d slip as you walked because they covered the ground. My grandfather was smart. He knew almost everything! He\u2019d fascinate me by telling me that June bugs only lived for twenty-four hours. I remember being fascinated by that. He told me that to a June bug, twenty-four hours was a lifetime. He\u2019d explain that time passed so slowly for them that they lived an entire life in one single day.<\/span><\/p>\n I was in awe of him. He was so smart.<\/span><\/p>\n Sometimes on summer evenings, we\u2019d take a walk to Otto\u2019s. Otto\u2019s was any kid\u2019s favorite place. It was one of my grandfather\u2019s favorite places too. Otto\u2019s was a dairy with an ice cream parlor attached to the front of it. I can still smell the inside of that place. I can still see the red-cushioned counter stools and the gleaming green-white counter. I can see the milkshake machines and hear them whirring and stirring up the best milkshakes in the world.<\/span><\/p>\n And sometimes we\u2019d take a walk to the old railroad station. To a small boy, it was a huge, cavernous place with eerie echoes. It was all wood \u2013 wooden walls, wooden floors, wooden ceilings. Not much of it was painted that I recall. It was a dark wooden place with echoes. Echoes are what I remember best about the old railroad station. My grandfather would take me inside and we\u2019d sit on one of the big wooden benches and talk. I used to shout and listen to my voice echo around that huge place and my grandfather would smile and tell me a little about echoes.<\/span><\/p>\n Little did he know or imagine then, that his words and his memory would echo all through my life. Those echoes of days gone by still make me pause in the middle of the busiest day and smile as I remember my grandfather and the many days and evenings I spent with my hero.<\/span><\/p>\n In the winter he would take me ice skating at the boat basin near Battery Park, and he would stand there for hours in the cold watching me skate.<\/span><\/p>\n In the spring he\u2019d break out the baseball gloves and play catch with me. In the fall we\u2019d take \u201chikes\u201d and go on buckeye hunts. We\u2019d fill grocery bags with buckeyes and make necklaces out of them or just polish them up to look at. I don\u2019t know what became of all those buckeyes.<\/span><\/p>\n Though I seldom visit his grave, I can tell you there are no monuments or statues erected in his honor. It\u2019s just a grave with a headstone bearing his name and it\u2019s right next to the grave of my grandmother.<\/span><\/p>\n Just a grave among many graves and so ordinary you\u2019d never recognize it if you walked past it. Yet buried there is the greatest man I\u2019ve ever known\u2026 my hero\u2026 who means as much to me today as he did all those years ago.<\/span><\/p>\n My hero is buried in an ordinary grave, in an ordinary cemetery, among ordinary people in an ordinary small town in Ohio.<\/span><\/p>\n But my hero is not dead. He lives in my mind and more so in my heart every day of my life. When he spent time with me, I always felt he did it because he wanted to and not because he felt he had to. I never felt like I was an obligation or that I was a burden. I know he enjoyed the time we spent together as much as I did. He called me his \u201cpal\u201d and I know I was.<\/span><\/p>\n His legacy lives on in me as well as in my two sons. When my sons were growing up, I tried to be to them like my grandfather was with me. I learned so much about life and love from him. And I truly enjoyed the times I spent with my children when they were growing up. But I don\u2019t think I was as good with them as my grandfather was with me. I could have done better, I think.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n My grandfather would be pleased to know that because of him my sons and I had some incredibly special times when they were growing up. Times they\u2019ll remember many years from now and share with their children.<\/span><\/p>\n I don\u2019t wear the jerseys of NFL stars. I don\u2019t have any heroes that sing or dance. I don\u2019t buy things because some sports hero tells me I should. My hero isn\u2019t a senator, congressman, or any other sort of politician.<\/span><\/p>\n To the world, my hero would seen the most ordinary of men \u2013 just a short, overweight, bespectacled, bald man, whose heart was bigger than the sky. And though it was noted, in a tiny obituary printed on an obscure page in a small-town newspaper, that he had passed away \u2013 he will never die because he lives in my heart. And he lives on in the hearts of my children and their children.<\/span><\/p>\n I honor him by remembering him. And I will always remember him because my grandfather was the greatest man I have ever known.<\/span><\/p>\n And though he\u2019s been gone fifty-three years, he is still with me. And he is and will be my hero.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A Humble Tribute to the Greatest Man I\u2019ve Ever Known On February 26, 1971, the greatest man I have ever known passed away. And though he passed away that terrible February night – a night I’ll never forget – he lives on in my heart and my memory.\u00a0 There hasn\u2019t been a day that has gone by\u2026 Read More »<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26737,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[228],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27870"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27870"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27870\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27879,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27870\/revisions\/27879"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26737"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27870"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27870"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27870"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}