Comments Off on The Good Grandpa Book Journey. Day 180.
When I set out to write the Good Grandpa book, I went into the experience with ears and eyes wide open to whatever might come my way. I’d heard from…
When I set out to write the Good Grandpa book, I went into the experience with ears and eyes wide open to whatever might come my way.
I’d heard from historian and author Doris Kearns Goodwin that the right story for a book needs to find you, not the other way around. She explained that she set out to write the definitive biography of Abraham Lincoln, but as she learned more about the men who competed with Lincoln for the presidency a far more fascinating story emerged. The result was her extraordinary book, Team of Rivals.
Today I’m about half-way through my book journey—about 50,000 words—the result of many interviews with amazing grandpas from different walks of life (and waking up at 5am with lots of strong coffee as I tackle new chapters). This has been quite an experience.
The stories I’ve heard from grandpas have been extraordinary.
I’ve been deeply moved so many times, surprised by twists and turns, and found my own pathway as a grandpa illuminated by the wisdom that has been so generously shared with me.
Early on, I heard from legendary newsman Tom Brokaw that he believed every generation would have its own epic challenges to overcome, the kind of struggle that could forge our grandchildren to become the new greatest generation. The key was to learn from each challenge and become even stronger.
Tom Brokaw
I heard from John Cleese that it’s more important to find the truth than believe you know the truth, that sometimes absolute certainty can get in the way of learning.
Me with my comedy God, the great John Cleese.
I spoke with a grandfather who discovered the power of prayer to heal his cancer-stricken granddaughter, and in the process found his path back to God.
Eric Behr rediscovered his spirituality.
I met with a Muslim grandfather from India who sees our grandchildren as already the greatest generation of all time, bestowed with extraordinary gifts and opportunity, but in need of a greater sense of gratitude.
Recently, I spoke with three different grandpa Veterans, including a Vietnam combat Vet who shared a story that blew me away.
Gresh Lattimore, retired Navy Captain.
I have a long way to go before I finish, but I’ve definitely had an epiphany.
I set out on a mission to bring together stories and wisdom to help nurture the next great generation.
This purpose was grounded in the concept of changing our grandchildren and their future so they could live their best lives. What I’ve learned, however, is that I’m the one who has to change first. The youngest people in our growing family look up to me, and I must lead by example. There can be no pontificating.
Over the past 6 months, when I’ve questioned grandpas and probed for the essential wisdom they wished to impart to our grandchildren, I’ve heard the most powerful things. Many times before telling me their answers, these grandpas pause and then say, “I’m going to tell you something I wish someone had told me fifty years ago.”
I can’t wait to share these things with you when the book is published in the second half of 2025. All I can tell you now, without spoiling the happy ending, is that a pattern is emerging.
Stay tuned, and thank you for coming along with me on this journey. I’m very grateful. If you or someone you know has a story to share, please don’t hesitate to reach out.
Once upon a time in a land far away and long ago, my dad used to make up stories for us at bedtime. All his stories involved the same seven…
Once upon a time in a land far away and long ago, my dad used to make up stories for us at bedtime.
All his stories involved the same seven characters, Casper, Jasper, and five boys named Calvin, Charlie, Nick, John and Ted — me and my four older brothers. I recall loving the stories, but that’s all I remember because they were never written down.
When my two kids where little, I took a page from my dad’s dreamtime creative playbook and made up my own stories to tell them at bedtime. My kids remember loving the stories, but that’s all they remember because I never wrote them down.
These days, coming up with stories that feature my grandkids is as wonderful for me as it is for them, and maybe I’ve finally learned my lesson because I’ve started writing them down so they’ll never be lost.
My grandkids jump into bed and implore me, “Grandpa, tell us a story!”
Then—like the grandpa in The Princess Bride—I spin a tale of magical adventures. I’ll often pause in the middle of a story to offer up different branching pathways and give the grandkids a choice of which way to go, or ask them to create and vote on the best solution for beating the dragon, crossing the fiery swamp or outwitting the ogre.
Of course, it’s inevitable that they get so excited that going to sleep is impossible. I completely fail at the ‘get the kids calmed down’ concept and I’ve taken some heat for it. I beg forgiveness. Many years from now, my grandkids will never remember that they lost a few hours of sleep, but they will remember the stories I told them and the special time we had together.
These are Forever Stories, cut from the same cloth as Forever Letters but with a creative twist.
Here’s a recent tale:
Lucinda had been playing with her Teddy Bears—Henry, Charlie, Roen and Mae—for much of the afternoon on a green spring day in the little town of Oakdale, Connecticut, when she yawned very wide and said, “Oh goodness. It must be nap time.”
Lucinda’s mom, Fern, called up from downstairs just at that moment, “Lucinda! Time for your nap!”
Lucinda gave her bears a big hug and a kiss, and set them down side by side in the playroom. “Sleep tight, my fair princes,” she said. Lucinda’s mom tucked her into bed and soon the little girl fell into a deep sleep.
But in the playroom, things were just starting to wake up.
In the dimness, a small red light blinked on and a man’s voice crackled over a radio. “Calling all Teddy Bear Rescue Squads. Calling all Teddy Bear Rescue Squads. Can you read me?”
The Bears jumped to their feet and ran to the radio. Charlie pressed the red button and whispered, “Squad one reporting! I repeat, squad one reporting! Over.”
“Roger that, squad one!” said the voice. “We need you down at the playground immediately! A tiger has gotten loose from the zoo, and if he’s not put back in his cage who knows what could happen!”
“No problem!” said Henry. “We’re on it, Chief!”
“Let’s go!” piped up Roen, a girl bear.
“Let’s go!” chimed in Mae, Roen’s little sister, who was learning how to talk and often repeated whatever her sister said.
The bears had a quick meeting, trying to keep their Teddy Bear voices down. In case you’ve never heard a Teddy Bear talk, it’s a very high pitch, almost like hearing a baby ask for crackers or something. Use your imagination.
The question now was, should they take the Rescue Squad race car, the mini-jet, or the hot air balloon?
“This is my thinking,” said Charlie, “if we take the mini-jet we might get there faster but there’s no place to land at the playground. The racecar would be pretty fast, but if we take the hot air balloon we can bring the animal cage to put the tiger in. The cage won’t fit in the car.”
“Excellent idea!” said Henry, a little too loudly, apparently, for they suddenly heard footsteps in the hall getting closer to their door.
The bears jumped back to sit exactly where Lucinda had left them and sat very still, trying to make their glass eyes look blank, so that if Fern peaked in she wouldn’t suspect that they were real live bears with a secret mission in the Teddy Bear Rescue Squad.* They heard the footsteps stop just outside the door, as if Fern had stopped to listen, but then they moved on.
“Quick!” Henry whispered.
“Yea,” Charlie whispered back, “before anyone spots us!”
“’I’ll bring some blueberries!” said Roen, who always enjoyed snacks even during emergencies.
They grabbed the hot air balloon from the closet and hung it out the window, then used the air machine to pump hot air into the balloon, which quickly grew in size. Then they attached the red and blue striped basket to the bottom of the balloon with ropes, and below that they hung the animal cage.
Within minutes they were floating above the house and over the trees as the wind blew them towards the school playground.
Charlie used the spyglass to navigate. “Left, twenty degrees!” he ordered. “Good, now down a bit – WATCH OUT FOR THAT TREE!” They barely missed hitting the top of a big oak tree with its branches that seemed to reach out towards them like arms.
“Look!” Henry squeaked as he peered through the spyglass, “the tiger!”
“Let me see!” Charlie said, taking hold of the spyglass. “Wow!”
Roen had her turn, too. “That’s a big tiger!” she said when she saw the yellow and black striped beast pacing next to the swing set, its tail swishing side to side.
“That’s a big tiger!” Mae said.
Mrs. Moore, one of the teachers at the school, was perched on top of the swing set clutching the metal bar for dear life, staring down at the tiger pacing hungrily below.
The Squad arrived over the playground and hovered there as they worked out a plan. How would they get the tiger into the cage to save Mrs. Moore?
“I could blast it with my stun rocket,” Henry said.
“I could make it fall asleep by shooting it with an arrow tipped with sleeping powder!” said Charlie.
“Let’s cast a magic spell!” Roen said.
Mae stomped her feet and said, “I’ll kick it in the face!”
Everyone looked at Mae, wondering when she’d learned to say something like that and how the tiger would respond if kicked in the face by Mae’s little boot with its silver sparkles and a picture of Elsa from Disney’s Frozen.
All of these ideas could work, they decided, but were a bit risky.
Roen got out her blueberries to have a snack, offering a bowl of them to the rest. They munched the sweet blueberries for a minute, thinking hard to make the right decision. Then Roen had an epiphany, which is like an idea that pops into your head, “I’ll put my blueberries into the cage so the hungry tiger will go in and eat them. Then we’ll slam the door shut!”
Mae piped in, “Then we’ll slam the door shut!”
“Yes!” Henry said, pumping the air with his furry brown fist, “That’s how Grandpa Ted catches groundhogs. If it works for groundhogs, it’ll work for a tiger!”
“But do tigers eat blueberries?” asked Charlie.
“There’s only one way to find out!” Henry said.
“Find out!” Mae said.
Roen was lowered down on a rope towards the cage, which was hanging below the hot air balloon. Being as careful as possible, she attached a bag of blueberries to one side of the cage with tape. Henry and Charlie hauled her back up and she plopped down into the air balloon’s basket. “I’ve never done THAT before,” Roen said breathlessly.
“Well done, Roen!” Charlie and Henry said.
“Well done, Roen!” Mae said.
They positioned the hot air balloon directly over the tiger and—bit-by-bit—lowered the cage down to the playground. When Mrs. Moore saw them, her eyes filled with wonder because Teddy Bears flying around in balloons is not something you see every day.
The tiger looked up and growled, “Who is this who dares disturb my snack time?”
But when the tiger saw the cage and walked towards it, he grew curious. He walked into the cage slowly, further and further, sniffing the bag holding the blueberries.
The tiger growled, “Is it meat?”
“No,” said Roen.
“Is it cheese pizza?”
“No,” said Charlie.
The tiger licked the outside of the bag, curiously. “Is it candy?”
“Much better than candy!” said Henry.
“Much better than candy!” Mae said.
This is when Roen took out her ukulele and sang her blueberry song, “Blueberry, blueberry, bluuuuuuuue…..berry!”
The tiger could not resist. With one giant chomp he bit the whole bag of blueberries right off the back of the cage and chewed, a look of heavenly satisfaction spreading across his big cat face.
Quick as a wink Charlie pulled a rope that snapped that cage shut.
Oh, the tiger did not like being trapped one bit. He roared, blueberries clinging to his huge teeth as he bit the bars of the cage in vain. Mrs. Moore, however, was delighted. She jumped down off the swing set and looked up in gratitude as the balloon—now towing the furious tiger inside the cage—rose up into the sky.
“Who, er, what are you?” she called up to them.
“We’re the TEDDY BEAR RESCUE SQUAD!” they shouted.
Henry, Charlie, Roen and Mae flew over to the zoo and lowered the cage down inside, then fast as birds they fluttered their way back home, let the air out of the balloon and crawled back through a window. It was good they did, because just after they’d sat down in the pile of other toys, Fern (who thought she’d heard something) popped her head into the room. But all she saw was four Teddy Bears sitting absolutely still.
The Zoo was grateful to have a real tiger, something they’d always wanted. They set it loose in their African savanna area so it could roam around freely.
What the zookeepers could never figure out, though, was why the tiger never wanted to eat the bowls of red meat they put in his cage.
All the tiger would eat was fresh fruit, brought in by the truckload.
Over time, the zoo bought four more tigers to add to its collection. On any given day, though, you can easily tell which of them is the tiger that terrorized Mrs. Moore in the playground. It’s the one sitting, its belly stuffed, in a pile of banana peels and bits of blueberries, apples, oranges, grapes and mangos. On Thursdays he gets a special treat of pineapples, which he eats in one gulp. He never ate meat again. Kids visiting the zoo named him Fruity the Tiger. And that, oh my best beloved, is the end of the story.
It turns out lots of grandpas make up stories for their grandkids, and one in particular— Andre Renna, from Lancaster, Pennsylvania—took the idea to a whole new level.
Andre reached out to me through my blog and we had a great conversation in Zoom-land where I learned about his family roots and his storybook grandpa creations. Andre, 70, is a retired engineer and healthcare manager who grew up in a classic Italian-American family in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn.
“I had the greatest childhood in the world,” Andre told me, “My cousins lived in the house with me. We’d sit on the porch and watch the Mets on TV and have some expresso and sweet pastry. I’d walk to my grandmother’s house four blocks away.”
Andre’s dad was his hero, a solid presence in his life who worked multiple jobs to make sure there was always food on the table, with Italian feasts served up by his mom.
Andre had a close relationship with both his grandfather, a bricklayer, and his grandmother. “I inherited some of my grandfather’s tools— trowels, a hammer” Andre said, “those things are precious to me.”
Andre and his wife raised their two kids in Lancaster, and today they have two grandkids. His granddaughter, Aria, arrived on the scene first, launching a wonderful new chapter in Andre’s life. “She is without a doubt the light of my life,” Andre told me, “Everyone else is a close second. I have a beard because of Aria (Papa, grow a beard!).”
Andre’s #1 wisdom he wants to share with the next generation is to never break a promise. “Your word,” he said, “is the most important thing you have.”
When Aria was 18 months old, she won a stuffed yellow duck at a seaside boardwalk arcade. Aria’s Ducky became a much-loved companion that she carried everywhere — even into her imagination.
One day when Aria was 5, Andre was pushing her on the swing. “And she says, ‘I want to have a surprise birthday party for Ducky.’ And then she disappears because I’m pushing her and she’s still talking, right? We were on the swing for forty-five minutes, and she told me this whole story…”
“Everyone will be at the party,” Aria said, “Penguin, Turtle, Unicorn….”
WHOOSH!
“Flamingo, Snakey and T-Rex and….”
WHOOSH!
“But Jasmine the cat is going to ruin the party…”
WHOOSH!
“In the end Ducky will be OK because he knows we really love him.”
When they went inside, Andre excitedly told his wife the whole story. His wife told him, “Why don’t you write it as a book?” Andre replied, “What the heck do I know about writing a children’s book?”
“Just do it!”
When Andre related this, I was reminded—based on my personal experience—that the smartest thing we can do as grandpas is to listen to our wives.
Andre immediately went to work, embarking on a remarkable collaboration with Aria to create a new children’s book, The Adventures of Aria and Ducky: The Surprise Birthday Party, featuring a little girl named Aria and her menagerie of animals.
The Surprise Birthday Party, a collaboration between Andre and his granddaughter.
He started by simply writing down the story Aria had shared with him; she, along with Andre’s wife and sister, offered up suggestions and corrections to polish the draft. Andre then hired a professional illustrator, David Leonard, to bring the story to life.
For Andre and Aria, the smallest details mattered.
Aria would review the working drafts and say things like, “that doesn’t look like Ducky” or “Jasmine the cat is the wrong color.” Andre was diligent about making sure that the Aria character looked just like the Aria, from facial features to blond hair. “I said to the illustrator, it has to look like her because I want to be able to say, that’s my granddaughter. And in the future I want her to be able to show this to her kids and grandkids. I drove him nuts.” It was worth it.
Andre Renna shown here with his granddaughter, Aria, and Ducky.
When the book launched, Andre and Aria did their own promotional push, appearing on local TV stations and doing interviews for newspapers.
While Andre has sold numerous copies of the book, he’s found a bigger audience by donating copies to pediatric hospitals.
The genesis of the book, with characters based on toys and featuring real children, will have a familiar ring to students of classic children’s literature. Winnie-the-Pooh came about when English author A. A. Milne was inspired by a stuffed bear toy that he had bought for his son Christopher Robin.
But whether or not The Adventures of Aria and Ducky ever becomes well known doesn’t ultimately matter, and the same is true for The Teddy Bear Rescue Squad.
What does matter is that these stories have a chance to become classics in the lives of our families.
I think about the magic of storytelling a lot when I ponder what our grandkids will need in order to become the greatest generation. Many young children live in a world that’s rich with imagination. The couch cushions are their castle walls, a chopstick is Harry Potter’s magic wand. But somewhere along the line—perhaps when they are lined up in rigid rows at school—their flights of fancy become more grounded, their creativity stymied by the need to pass the next test. Yet the truth is that being creative throughout their entire lives may be the ultimate test, the best thing they can bring to their own families, and indeed to employers.
The World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Survey found that creative thinking skills are a top priority when considering talent.
Artificial Intelligence will eat a billion jobs, but the careers of genuinely creative people will be secure for all time.
If we follow the example of Andre and Aria, and A. A. Milne, the next generation will always have their secret forest to walk in, their Hundred Acre Wood, a place where wise owls talk, where the mysterious heffalump eludes even the best trackers, and our favorite bear devours pots of delicious honey. Ducky, Casper, Jasper, Christopher Robin, Calvin, Charlie, Nick, John and Ted will also live in the forest, plus my grandkids and yours, forever and ever.
And that, oh my best beloved, is the end of the story.
Note: If you’d like a signed copy of The Adventures of Aria and Ducky, contact Andre here: awrenna@comcast.net
*Just out of curiosity I recently Googled “Teddy Bear Rescue Squad” and discovered that a woman in England is crafting outfits for a Teddy Bear Rescue Squad. Small world!
Getting a book deal is exciting. Now comes the hard part — writing a good book. Writing is usually considered a solo endeavor, but in the case of Good Grandpa…
Getting a book deal is exciting. Now comes the hard part — writing a good book.
Writing is usually considered a solo endeavor, but in the case of Good Grandpa I know I can’t do this alone. I will be traveling around the U.S. and other countries to meet with grandpas from different backgrounds and cultures. I’m hunting for fascinating life stories that have powerful lessons built into them; unique cultural differences that make grandparenting experiences different from my own. And, most of all, finding anything that shines a light on the kind of wisdom that only comes with advancing years.
Instagram is populated with “influencers,” most often young and beautiful people hawking luxury handbags. I have nothing against youth and fashion. But I think it’s time for more influencers who are in their 60s to 90s and beyond.
Let’s influence people to bring about major societal changes that make the world a better place. And have fun along the way.
If you know of a grandpa with a story to tell and wisdom to share, here’s my email: ted@goodgrandpa.com. I will do my best to respond to every email I receive.
Love to all,
Ted
P.S. Some people have asked me, “What about the grandmas?” I value grandmas equally, and I would not be half the man I am without my wife of 38 years. But I happen to be a grandpa so I can write from experience. A Good Grandma book would be great, written most authentically by a grandma.
In 1837 Nathaniel Gamage, Jr. became the second keeper of the Pemaquid Lighthouse in New Harbor, Maine. He and other lighthouse keepers up and down the New England coast were…
In 1837 Nathaniel Gamage, Jr. became the second keeper of the Pemaquid Lighthouse in New Harbor, Maine.
He and other lighthouse keepers up and down the New England coast were called “wickies,” named after the whale-oil soaked wicks of the lanterns they were tasked with trimming and keeping alight to alert ships nearing the rocky shore.
On a hot sunny September day 186 years later, a new group of travelers came to the lighthouse: my wife and I, along with Jack and Kalley Moore, their son Ryan (our son in law), and the two grandsons we have in common — Henry and Charlie. Jack, Ryan and the boys are all direct descendants of Nathaniel Gamage.
This was more than a typical tourist visit. It was more like a homecoming.
To say that the Pemaquid Lighthouse is iconic doesn’t do it justice. It sits atop a rise of granite high above the ocean, and on the day of our visit the white of the majestic tower was matched by the whitecaps of the waves stretching out across the horizon. Henry and Charlie scrambled over the rocks and darted around the throngs of visitors lining up to ascend up the lighthouse.
While we waited our turn in line, Jack let the State Park ranger know about the Moore family’s ancestral tie to the lighthouse. The lanky ranger was in his 60s, a retired cop with a thick Maine accent. As soon as he heard that not one but THREE generations of Gamage descendants were visiting his whole face lit up. Other people in line heard the news as well and we all joined in a lively conversation, with the park ranger sharing history and chatting with Henry and Charlie.
I brought the boys through the house attached to the lighthouse, now a museum. They were thrilled to see the artifacts on display, including the name of their great, great, great, great (at least this many greats) grandfather listed on a plaque.
Soon it was our turn to go up into the lighthouse. The stairs were narrow and steep, and we grandpas and grandmas ascended cautiously while the boys were eager to sprint.
There was just enough room at the top for our extended family. I think it’s fair to say we all felt a sense of wonder being there. The view was of course breathtaking, looking out through the glass to a panoramic and classic view of the Maine coastline.
In the center was the light, surrounded by our family. The brilliant sunshine hit the curved Fresnel glass lens and refracted around us.
We were there in the present, yet with a sense that the lighthouse itself was a beacon that shone across the years to the time of grandpa Gamage. I wondered what Nathaniel would have said if someone had told him that someday this visit would happen, that his future family would stop by in a few hundred years, with these amazing kids a testament to his legacy.
While I am not related to grandpa Gamage, he and I have the very best things in common: Henry and Charlie, and the joy of passing on a little bit of who we are to the next generations to come. For me, this was a shining, shimmering revelation.
After we’d very carefully descended the winding stairs, Ryan and the boys went down to the shore to walk and play along the rocks by the crashing waves. I could see them in the distance silhouetted against the water as the boys held up discovered shells for dad to see, or jumped from rock to rock, while seagulls swooped and soared above.
I turned 64 on July 16th and as The Beatles’ song rang through my mind (“When I get older, losing my hair, many years from now…”) I took a moment…
I turned 64 on July 16th and as The Beatles’ song rang through my mind (“When I get older, losing my hair, many years from now…”) I took a moment to reflect on what I’ve learned over the years. Here goes, in no particular order of importance.
#1. Don’t wait for a global pandemic to live your best life.
For decades I slogged through heavy traffic to commute into Boston to work at the ad agency I co-founded, Captains of Industry. I thought that being successful meant having employees and a nice office. It wasn’t until the pandemic struck and we closed down the office that I realized the full depth of just how miserable I’d been for a long time. When we closed the office and I began working from my home in Vermont I felt like I’d been let out of jail. No commuting. No management hassles. This morning, like a lot of mornings, I woke at 5 and went for a long swim. After breakfast I read a book to my grandson, and now I’m in my home office. This is good. Very, very good.
#2. Make health your job.
When I was running my agency at our Boston office I was so stressed out my health went into a downward spiral. I will spare you the details, but let’s just say it was incredibly awful. These days I have a to-do list on Google docs and at the top is whatever workout I have planned for that day. I feel great, I’m twice as productive than I was a few years ago, and I make more money.
#3. Being kind is the best investment you can make.
Coming back to The Beatles (they are after all still my favorite band), they sang “And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.” I’ve learned this lyric actually underestimates the value of generous love and kindness. When I’m kind to others it’s always returned in greater measure. Plus, it’s the right thing to do.
#4. There is no such thing as a Red or Blue State.
Have you ever been to a family gathering when one of your relatives (let’s call him Steve) finally leaves and as soon as he’s gone you say to your spouse, “Jeeze, can you believe that guy? Was he raised by wolves?” Then, a few months later, something challenging happens in your life and Steve is the first to call and offer to help. That’s what America is. We have our differences, but at the end of the day we are one big family. Often dysfunctional, but a family nevertheless.
#5. Creative ideas are all around us.
We just have to listen to find them. The main barrier to creativity is the mental clammer that usually buzzes around in our minds. When I meditate, I gradually calm down the brain buzz, and when I reach a quieter and more focused state all kinds of creative ideas reveal themselves to me. The ideas have been there all along, like puppies pawing at a door, and when distraction is gone the door opens. I keep a pad of paper handy to write down what the puppies tell me.
#6. The best feature on your smart phone is airplane mode.
Related to point #5, turning off the phone helps prevent distraction — the top plague of modern life.
#7. People who want you to worry about eating red meat or Cheetos are unhealthy to be around.
We can’t eat these things every day in mass quantities, but let’s bust loose now and then and enjoy ourselves without stressing about it. Have you had Cheetos lately? Yes, the day-glow color of Cheetos does not exist in nature, and the ingredients will never appear in any cookbook. But come on, they are indescribably crunchy and yummy. And a good steak, right off the grill, is a recipe for happiness.
#8. Our perception of time is tied to the quality of stories.
As a writer, I focus on telling a good story and don’t worry about making it too long. Horrible 90-minute movies are interminable. The original Godfather, at nearly 3 hours, is a classic that goes by in the blink of an eye.
#9. People won’t laugh if they are confused.
This is something John Cleese told me when I wrote a script for him, and he’s right. I later asked him how this lesson related to the concept of medieval knights “riding” around banging coconuts together. Why would audiences not find that confusing? The answer of course was that in that particular off-kilter world it all made perfect sense. The reason why many comedies are not funny is that they fail to establish a consistent and understandable universe that doesn’t confuse the audience.
#10. We are all connected in ways science does not yet explain.
My late Aunt Lois used to tell the story of a man named Willard Haskell that she knew in high school. In the Second World War he was a pilot stationed in England. One night she had a vivid dream that he was flying overhead in a squadron of bombers and he was leaning out the window of the cockpit waving goodbye. When Lois woke up that morning she learned that the D-Day landings were underway. Two weeks later she found out that Willard’s plane had been shot down on D-Day, at the same time she had the dream. The lesson: All the people we know and love are always with us in a vast and interconnected web that transcends time and space.
#11. Never let anyone put artificial limits on what you can or should do.
10 lessons was the original limit here, but who cares. One of the best things about the movie “This is Spinal Tap” is that the band’s amplifier goes to 11. So, turn up the volume. Go beyond the expected. Have a ball. Life is too short for anything less.
Comments Off on A Tale of Two Pilots (and the Generational Value of Longevity).
It was an early morning in July 1918, cloudy with a strong wind blowing as the American pilot flew his Nieuport 28 biplane over Chamery, a hamlet of Coulonges-en-Tardenois not…
It was an early morning in July 1918, cloudy with a strong wind blowing as the American pilot flew his Nieuport 28 biplane over Chamery, a hamlet of Coulonges-en-Tardenois not far from the front lines. His mission: Scout out and shoot down German reconnaissance. The fields of France were lush and green below, expanding out to the horizon where a glimmer of sun shone through the clouds, with dark trenches coiled through the fields like venomous snakes.
The roar of the planes behind him was his first sign of trouble.
He turned with alarm to see three Fokker Chasse planes bearing down on him from above. He yanked the stick hard to maneuver and climb into a more favorable fighting position, hearing the rattling bursts of machine gun fire growing nearer. It was too late. Within seconds, he was shot twice in the back of the head. His plane turned over on its back and plunged to Earth.
Back home on Long Island, the young man’s father—former President Theodore Roosevelt—mourned deeply from afar. Roosevelt put on a brave face for the press, but many believed he was so heartbroken he never recovered, and died barely a year after his favorite son, Quentin.
In the same French skies that year was another American pilot, Lieutenant Frederick L. Fish. The son of a Vermont State Supreme Court justice, Fred was tall, with short-cut sandy brown hair, a long face with an aquiline nose and clear grey-blue eyes. As he flew, Fred looked down at the battle below, a muddy moonscape of devastation, trenches separated by undulating piles and pits from shell blasts, shattered tree trunks pointing at twisted angles.
Fred pulled the trigger. But instead of firing a machine gun, he was snapping the shutter of a camera mounted to his plane, photographing enemy positions to provide intelligence to army headquarters. Fred was smart. Resourceful. Brave. Lucky as hell.
Fred was also my grandfather.
After the war, Fred Fish became a successful salesman, and in middle age became a Colonel in the Air Force in WWII to help organize allied resources for the D-Day landings.
I got to know Gramp very well, thankfully, when I was a teenager working for him to help manage and clean his rental cottages on our family farm along the shores of Lake Willoughby in Vermont’s remote Northeast Kingdom. The five-mile-long lake was formed when a glacier bore down from the North, cutting a deep trough in the land and splitting one big mountain in two—Mt. Pisgah and Mt. Hor—with steep rock cliffs that slope down to the deep lake waters. The family’s rental cottages, all painted red with white trim, lined a sandy beach and hugged the banks of a brook that flowed from Westmore mountain.
Even then, in the 1970s, Gramp had a commanding presence.
Though bent with age, he was still tall at six foot two, and was quite comfortable giving orders and seeing that they were obeyed without question. He was usually dressed head to toe in khaki, including a cap, and would fix me with his clear eyes and tell me to do this (empty buckets of sewage out of a septic well) or that (rake the beach). Or the Sisyphean task of cleaning the cottages in-between rentals using an upright vacuum that had terrible suction. “You missed a spot!”
I can picture him now vividly as he kicked back at the end of a long day, drinking a Miller High Life in the yard behind the Farmhouse. “Teddy,” he’d say, “there’s no substitute for hard work.”
Gramp lived into his mid-eighties, always active and full of life. He sang hymns in Church, delighting everyone with his vibrant baritone voice. Often down at the beach he’d break into yet another chorus of his favorite song, The Foggy Foggy Dew.
Why does the fact that Gramp survived two wars and lived a long life matter? Why did it matter to him, and—for the purposes of this story—why did it matter to me, my brothers and cousins? Just as important, why did his very nature as a grandfather matter to us, complete with his many tales of adventure and shared wisdom?
It turns out it matters a lot. Not just in the case of my Gramp, but for all grandpas and our loved ones here in America and around the world. The reasons are rooted in the history of humanity itself.
Early humans lived lives that Thomas Hobbes best described as “Solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”
Fossil records indicate that our very earliest ancestors 30,000 years ago lived to about the age of 30. Which meant very few lived long enough to become grandparents. Scientists aren’t sure why Upper Paleolithic Europeans started to live longer into relatively old age, but they surmise that the changes brought about by this longevity had a profound impact on evolution.
When more grandparents came on the scene, things started to change for the better.
“Grandparents,” an article in Scientific American informs us, “contribute economic and social resources to their descendants, increasing both the number of offspring their children can have and the survivorship of their grandchildren.” In other words, having grandpa and grandma hanging out in the cave meant they were there to help raise the kids and dole out essential knowledge. Grandparents could teach, from experience, how to plant seeds to get the best crops. Or a thousand other things that helped the family survive and thrive.
Gramp’s habit of telling stories ladled with wisdom is likely a key reason why several of my four older brothers survived into adulthood.
Here’s one story out of many that shows how Gramp made a difference.
It was Easter, 1969, a lovely spring day in Lexington, Massachusetts, when my family—mom, dad and brothers—loaded into the station wagon and headed over to my grandparents’ house across town for the traditional late afternoon feast of ham, potatoes, peas, pies and handfuls of chocolate Easter eggs.
I was 10 at the time, while my eldest brother, Calvin, was twenty-one, and Charlie, nineteen. Both draft age for Vietnam. Photos taken that day seem inked in pastel hues, all of us in jackets and ties, young and pink-faced.
The war was not far away. Every night we watched Walter Cronkite on the evening news and there was always a tally of the men who had died in Vietnam. My parents were very much against the war and were not shy about saying so. Dad was no stranger to war, having been divebombed by kamikazes at the battle of Okinawa. He often said war was the stupidest thing he’d ever seen, and Vietnam only confirmed his beliefs. He did his part to serve his country but suffered lifelong PTSD. I once witnessed my mom give him food in a red dish, and when he saw the color red he clenched his teeth and screamed, “Blood!”
Having seen dad’s post-war stress up close, Calvin and Charlie were nervous about the draft; there was a lot of nail biting going on.
Calvin was still a bit on the fence, though, about whether he’d go to Vietnam if his draft number came up. He’d been in ROTC and was better prepared than most of his peers to fight. Both my parents hated Richard Nixon. My Gramp and Gram, however, were lifelong Republicans through and through. Even if Nixon wasn’t perfect, they would always support whoever led the Grand Old Party.
After we’d gorged ourselves on Gram’s multi-course dinner, we retired to the living room. Somehow the topic of Vietnam came up. My grandparents never said a word about Vietnam, which is why what Gramp said that day was so astonishing.
Gramp held court in his chair, center stage, while we young men sat nearby in respectful silence. “Well, boys,” Gramp said, “when I went to war the first time, in World War I, they told us it was the war to end all wars. Then came World War II don’t you know, and we had to go back and fight another one. Then there was Korea. And now there’s Vietnam.”
Here Gramp gestured one long hand in the air for emphasis, “All I can tell you is, it’s always the old men who start wars, and it’s the young men who are sent off to fight them.”
None of us said a word in response, but heads nodded. We knew exactly what Gramp’s opinion of Vietnam was without him ever having to be explicit or betray his Republican principles. None of my brothers chose to fight in Vietnam.
Only a man who’d flown above the trenches in France, then returned to Europe to fight again not too long after, and only a man who loved his grandsons more than anything, had the moral credence, love and wisdom required to tell us what he did. My brothers and I lived on to have children and grandchildren of our own.
What are lessons that I and other grandparents can impart to help nourish the next great generation? What role does wisdom play in survival and happiness?
In future posts, I’ll offer up some ideas. Not only mine, but gems of wisdom I’ve heard from other grandparents. If you have suggestions or would like to write a guest post, drop me a line at teddypage@gmail.com.
Peter Pan protested that he would not grow up. In the island of Neverland, he and Wendy could live a never-ending adventure filled with pirates, fairies and crocodiles, and they…
Peter Pan protested that he would not grow up. In the island of Neverland, he and Wendy could live a never-ending adventure filled with pirates, fairies and crocodiles, and they could fly.
As a grandfather, I’ve rediscovered my inner boy, that eternal Peter Pan that never really left me but was hidden from my vision for a while. I become Peter again when I’m building a cave out of couch cushions with my grandkids. Venomous snakes hunt across the jungle floor (the living room) in search of prey. A pterodactyl (me) swoops down and darkens the sky, talons reaching towards the mouth of the cave as the helpless little ones scream with laughter.
Childhood is indeed a magical place, but as parents and grandparents we know all too well that it doesn’t last forever.
When I was very little, I remember my dad would hold me up and rub my face against the stubble of his early morning beard, the sandpaper-like feel of it making me giggle. Then one day when I was older, he picked me up and was about to do what he’d always done, but I stopped him and said, “I don’t like that anymore.” He looked very sad. At the time I didn’t understand why.
But I do now.
As a grandpa, I’m experiencing time with a sense of increasing acceleration.
My eldest grandson is now 9, and the time between when I held that baby boy and the long-limbed seemingly pre-teen he is today, the one who is able to tackle me to the floor quite effectively, passed in the blink of a crocodile’s eye. And with this rapid passage of time I’ve become more aware than ever of the little changes I see in my grandkids, the moments I see them emerging from Neverland, sometimes in small steps, other times in giant leaps.
There’s great joy in seeing them progress upward in life (and all of them very tall, like me). Yet I feel an almost indescribable sadness when I see them leaving their own childhoods behind. A sadness that the magic I have witnessed—and rediscovered—is fleeting.
It’s one thing to experience this as a parent. As a grandpa, the emotions are all the more poignant because I know this is my last rodeo.
Each step that I see them take into adulthood has an air of personal finality for me because I know I will only see this once. And may not live long enough to see them have children of their own. This is it.
I recently had one of these joy/sadness moments on a Sunday morning. My son came over with his two girls to hang out and eat too many bagels, one of our favorite weekend activities.
Like most grandparents, my wife I read a lot to our grandkids. Whether it’s Goodnight Moon, or searching once again for the elusive rainbow elephant, we’re always reaching for another book. No matter what’s going on, or which grandchild is with us, we’ll ask if they’d like to read a book, and another, and another.
On this particular Sunday, I was in the living room with our youngest granddaughter, not yet 2 years old. She’s a very bright girl, cute and always fearlessly active (rock walls? Yes!) and highly focused on building Magna-Tile structures or whatever toy is before her. I was sitting in my leather chair, enjoying watching her bustle about. The sun was shining through multiple windows, filling the room with a bright, warm feeling. She was snapping Legos together, quietly figuring out what pieces would fit.
Then she looked up at me with her big brown eyes, picked up a book and held it toward me, and asked, “Would you like to read a book?”
I was startled. This very young girl, still in diapers and barely beyond infancy, had just formed a complete sentence, and the look on her face was suddenly so grown-up, so girl versus baby, that the joy/sadness of the moment struck me with full force. The part of me that was in the room then, fully present with my granddaughter, replied, “Yes, I would love to read a book.”
The other part of me, this boy inside who never, ever wanted to grow up, was flying with Wendy hand in hand through the night sky, the wind in my hair, heading home.
Second star to the right and straight on ’til morning.
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Like so many Americans I was completely horrified by the storming of our nation’s capital on January 6th. This, I thought, was the modern-day equivalent of the sacking of Rome…
Like so many Americans I was completely horrified by the storming of our nation’s capital on January 6th.
This, I thought, was the modern-day equivalent of the sacking of Rome by the Visigoths. The end of the American empire, at our own hands, no less. The people throwing fire extinguishers at the capitol police wore red, white and blue outfits. All for the purpose of Making America Great Again, as if this violence was a return to our better days. I absolutely hated the rioters, and still do.
But if I am to be truly honest with myself, I’d admit that not everyone there that day was a violent extremist rioter.
There were moms and dads pushing their kids in strollers. They, too, wore red, white and blue outfits. It was like they were at some kind of picnic, a patriotic event. And why would they think they were not? The President of the United States had told them the election was being stolen and it was up to them to do something about it.
Since that day I’ve done a lot of thinking about the deep divisions in American society and what can be done about it. On issue after issue we Americans are at each others’ throats trying to strangle some sense into the idiots who hold an opposing view.
And all the while these issues have been boiling over, with people shouting on Fox News or CNN, our tribal echo chambers of conservative and liberal media, I’ve been writing for this blog about grandparenting. The purpose of Good Grandpa remains to help nurture the next great generation. It occurs to me that this mission sounds rather lofty, but it’s vague on how to actually get the job done. How do we as grandparents help our kids raise a generation of Americans who can far surpass even “the greatest generation” that Tom Brokaw wrote about in his book; my parents’ generation that lived through the depression and won World War II?
That’s a tall order, isn’t it?
So, here’s a specific thing we can do. Whether we are Democrats or Republicans, liberals or conservatives, we can introduce our grandchildren to an extremely important three-word phrase: “I respectfully disagree.”
Try saying that out loud. Let it roll around in your mind. Have you heard anyone say this on cable TV in the last 20 years? No, because ratings are based on conflict, not respectful disagreement.
Just because a Republican doesn’t agree with me doesn’t make them a bad person, and visa versa. If we can get our grandchildren, the 5 and 12 year olds, to take this one guiding principle to heart, it’s something they will bring with them into their adult lives, into the workplace, and into politics. Our grandchildren can be a unifying force, a common American ground.
Instead of a million man or woman march on Washington with people screaming at each other with bullhorns, let’s have a million toddler stroll, with grandparents leading the way as we bring the kids together to celebrate just that. Being together.
If you look at the news you see constant talk of red states and blue states. I frankly think it’s BS. Whether someone is from Kansas or Vermont, if they have grandkids they have something absolutely wonderful in common. These kids are the future, which means they have the potential to be the America they we all have wished for, those better angels of our nature that Lincoln spoke of.
Feel free to disagree—respectfully—but I think we can do this. What say you?
Comments Off on The Passage of Time (a meditation in words)
When you get to be sixty-two like me, or somewhere in this neck of the woods, you’re used to hearing things like, “Where does the time go?” Or, when we…
When you get to be sixty-two like me, or somewhere in this neck of the woods, you’re used to hearing things like, “Where does the time go?” Or, when we talk about our four grandchildren, “They’re growing up so fast!” My wife and I have a weird sense of time these days, with different recollections of when things in the past happened.
We’ll be thinking about when something occurred (a kid going off to college or whatever) and one of us will say, “It was the year we had the house painted. Twelve years ago.”
“That wasn’t twelve years ago!” the other says, “That was twenty years ago!”
“Was it? Oh yea, you’re right.”
It’s not that we’re losing our minds. It’s that the ship we are traveling on through time experiences warp speed without us every exclaiming “Make it so!”
So, sometimes we don’t notice when a decade whips past. And yet the most recent stretch of time during the pandemic has felt like two of the very longest years ever. Have you ever noticed that really, really good movies that are three hours long seem like they’re over in an hour, while terrible ninety-minute movies last an eternity? Our perception of time is all relative to our experiences. Life is just another story we just happen to be living.
I am writing this from our farm in the far reaches of Vermont in a place called the Northeast Kingdom. The locals joke that July and August are two months of bad sledding. It’s one of those funny/not funny jokes because winter here is in fact interminable, with snow not uncommon in May. Often, nothing seems to change for many days in a row. We look out the window most mornings in March to see snow falling.
Yet when I really pay attention, I can see spring trying to rise up and find me.
Last week I went on one of my daily walks through the woods, along a rushing brook, and there in front of me was something startling: a bright green fern sprouting up and out in all directions. I found it strikingly beautiful, perhaps because it was in the middle of a very cold forest full of ice and snow. In a few weeks, or maybe a month, the lilacs along our deck will extend their limbs as if stretching for the first time after their long sleep.
Seeing these snapshots within my life’s story is like a time stamp, a reminder that this is not really one big blur going past — not if we take the time to pause and look.
I think of this when I see my grandchildren, in person or on Instagram,….
…My eldest grandchild, a seven year old boy now, in a picture where his arms are so long he looks like a teenager. He’s perched on my shoulders, smiling from ear to ear, on top of the world.
I see this same boy holding my three-year old granddaughter’s hand as they walk through the halls of an aquarium surrounded my luminescent fish. Cousins and buddies already! Wow.
I see my youngest granddaughter, barely one year old, saying my daughter’s name for the first time, “Ab-i-gail!”
I see my youngest grandson, age five, helping my daughter chop vegetables, dressed in his Ninja costume and using what appears to be a Samurai blade.
I hear the sound of a grandson laughing as I launch him like a rocket off my shoulders while standing in Lake Willoughby in August, and see him flailing through space before splashing down; as soon as he’s surfaced he’s shouting, “Do that again! Higher!”
Experiencing these moments fully, examining them as the jewels they truly are, doesn’t slow the rushing time of life’s narrative—because, as I said, good stories do seem to go by faster—but added together they create a mosaic that transcends a ticking clock. The picture is grand and breathtaking.
And while I’m working every mental muscle to see the NOW, I’m also looking back on occasion because that helps put the present in context. This blog has helped me tell stories that have formed a kind of time capsule, for my readers and for myself. Today I read again the very first post I wrote. Here it is:
February 2014
Today my daughter Abigail shared the news that I am the grandfather of a heartbeat.
The ultrasound image was pasted into a Valentine’s card
A black and white Rorschach, with one tiny hand reaching up as if to say, “Hello.”
The boulder of energy that struck my chest was both kind and playful
It whispered of future walks in a Vermont meadow
Me holding my grandchild’s hands up as she takes toddling steps through the tall grass
His gleeful laughter at how new and thrilling it is to be alive
Smeared peas and Cheerios soggy with milk on a highchair tray
And sitting together by the brook, staring in wonder and silence
At water spiders darting here and there.
What are things you are experiencing now that form your own story and colorful mosaic? If you’re a grandparent, how do these experiences enrich your life? Please feel free to share your thoughts through posting a comment.
I first experienced double vision in 2019 during an intensely stressful period at work around the holidays. I had a weird virus of some kind (back when the term virus…
I first experienced double vision in 2019 during an intensely stressful period at work around the holidays.
I had a weird virus of some kind (back when the term virus had far tamer connotations than today), and my entire body broke out in a horrible itchy rash. Days later, while driving, I saw with alarm that the sidewalk on the right side of the road was now at an angle across the middle of the road. An eye specialist soon found the culprit: the 6th cranial nerve behind my left eye had gone on vacation, perhaps because of the virus. This particular nerve is in charge of the lateral movement of the eye, so while I had—and still have—two perfectly healthy eyes, they don’t look in the same direction. My primary doctor emailed nonchalantly, “We rarely know what causes it, and it usually goes away.”
He was right. While I was deeply alarmed that my vision had gone to hell, within about three months I was fully back to normal. I thought all that was behind me.
I was wrong.
On a sunny September day a few weeks ago I started seeing double again. The angle of the roadway was all off, and with the Picasso-like modernism of my multiple vision came a sudden torrent of sheer panic. I put on my reading glasses and looked at my computer screen, and there, too, was double vision. Doing my work as a writer was doubly hard if not impossible. Worst of all, the bizarre vision made me dizzy and nauseous.
My eye doctor confirmed that my 6th cranial nerve was not working properly. And this time I am being referred to a neurologist. In the absence of high blood pressure or diabetes, both of which can cause sudden vision changes, I did not fit the profile of those with double vision.
Doctors are by nature wary of telling patients all the things that can actually be wrong.
They don’t want us to freak out. That’s what the Internet is for. The WebMD site indicates that the 6th cranial nerve can have problems due to things like a brain tumor, stroke, or MS. Of course, the site also explained, it usually goes away within a few months. The neurologist will no doubt have me get a brain scan to check for these things.
And in the meantime, life goes on. I see my body as a ship carrying me through time and space. At any given moment there might be one or more things wrong (a sore tendon in my foot, for example). Like Scotty on Star Trek, I’m dispatched to fix the problem, and I’m usually pleased to report back—in a Scottish brogue—that it won’t be easy but it will get done. It has to.
So the repairs keep happening while I’m hurtling at warp speed through life, working with clients, spending time with my wife and (most important for both of us) being with our four grandchildren.
Fear stalks anyone who hears the word “brain tumor.” But, I’ve told myself, this is what we all sign up for when we are born.
Our little newborn baby hands are too small to hold the pen on the contract that must be initialed as soon as we emerge from the womb, but the contract is binding nevertheless. It states unequivocally that we must accept with grace the good and the bad, the joy and the pain, the love and heartache.
I have a friend who lost a young son to a brain tumor. It was and is horribly sad. He was far too young to be taken from this world. I, on the other hand, am 62. If my number is up (and to be clear, I don’t believe it is), I can have no complaints. How many men get to enjoy being with not just one, but four grandchildren? As my dad used to say, “This is all grace.” There is no alternative to keeping calm and carrying on.
And so it was that within days of meeting with the eye specialist I found myself at fabled Walden Pond in Concord, Massachusetts.
I started a regimen back in the spring that entailed mile-long swims four or five days a week. Thanks to swimming and dietary changes I have lost twenty-five pounds since June, and I wasn’t about to stop for anything.
The air was cool—about 60 degrees—the leafy trees along the water’s edge were just beginning to turn red, yellow and orange. I took off the glasses I use that blocks the vision of my left eye so I can see straight with my right eye, and put on my swimming goggles.
Goggles themselves are rarely clear, so putting them on and seeing the familiar blur of the water-splotched plastic lenses was calming, like a visual white noise that partly obscured the reality of my double vision. I jumped forward into the cold water and swam hard and fast, thrusting my arms forward and back, the shock of the cold gradually easing as the exercise warmed me and the waters washed over and around and under me, propelled forward with the knowledge of my potential doom chasing behind, or perhaps it was simply the joy of being in my element again, doing something regular and healthy in defiance of my dysfunctional cranial nerve and the fear of the insidious brain tumor strangling it unseen inside by skull.
My hands pounded in the water, pulling back again and again until I needed a rest, and there in the center of the one-mile long pond I switched from the crawl stroke to the less strenuous sidestroke. Doing the sidestroke, you float on your side, one eye in the water, the other above, coordinating arms reaching and pulling while scissoring the legs.
On my side, the edge of the pond came into starker view.
A painting of fall leaves seen laterally, with the blue sky above and the dark pond below. And with my cranial nerve on sabbatical, the scene was repeated one over the other.
Henry David Thoreau famously spent a year camped beside the pond when writing his seminal work, Walden. As he once wrote in his journal, “The question is not what you look at, but what you see.”
There in my double pond on that day, I saw my life.
Not a “life flashing before your eyes” vision but more of a meditation on this whole experience. I think if Thoreau were alive today he’d be one of the people on the beach with his iPhone turned off, or better yet left in the car. When we are really alone with our uninterrupted thoughts we see more clearly. The noise of everyday life is a distraction. Seeing a double shoreline, I knew then, was weird but ok at the same time. I told God that if this is what he wanted me to experience, I was “all in.” I would see both shores and their myriad fall colors. Because accepting whatever comes and letting it flow through my body and mind like the cool waters around me was a way to acknowledge that the pain and anxiety and beauty were inseparable and inevitable.
It’s the contrast between the dark sadness and vivid, beautiful happiness that makes all the good things in life so much better.
Intermingled with my prayer, I saw a memory (captured in my mind like a perfect photo) of my two grandsons, age 7 and 5, running across the beach at our place in Vermont. In the background was the deep blue lake and evergreen mountains, and the boys were looking up excitedly at the sky because an eagle was there not more than fifty yards overhead flying north, and they shouted “the eagle!”
In that memory was the awareness that life is just as finite as this second. The perfect alignment of eagle, grandsons, a glorious summer day. Here, now.
Chances are, the neurologist will find nothing alarming in my brain scan. My 6th cranial nerve will tire of its extended vacation and come back to work with renewed vigor. My perfect vision will return. Or it might return for the most part but I’ll need to wear glasses like most people.
But no matter what happens, I hope I can learn from Mr. Thoreau. I’ll keep swimming right up until the pond freezes over (I have a wetsuit, after all). And if I learn very well, then I will know that it’s not about what I look at that matters, but what I really and truly see.
