My grandfather – my dad’s dad – had many titles.  He was a physician in a small Kentucky town, so everywhere we went, he was greeted with a hearty “Hello, there, Dr. Dew!”  He liked to joke that he had delivered about half of them.  He was also a Catholic deacon, so if it wasn’t Dr. Dew, it was Deacon Dew.  The heartiness would be the same.  He was also an Army officer and a pilot, an elected official and a Kentucky Colonel, but, of course, he was simply Grandfather to me.  My younger cousins called him Fafa, but that monicker never really appealed to me.  I preferred the original, more dignified title. 

To be with Grandfather was to be under his tutelage.  He was always teaching – always finding an occasion to impart some bit of knowledge, some morsel of wisdom.  He had a lot of it, and the truth of the matter was that it was hard-earned.  He spent his boyhood in and out of orphanages until he eventually lied about his age and joined the service.  Little Orphan Annie had nothing on Grandfather, for his was truly a hard knocks life.  Eventually, he made his way to the University of Louisville, undergrad then medical school, and settled in the town of Vine Grove where he was known to make house calls with his little black bag and accept as payment baked goods and a chicken or two.  He practiced medicine during its golden age when insurance companies and Big Pharma did not have their noses in the exam room, and to a young man who acted as his sidekick, it was hard not to be impressed by how this little, portly man was regarded by the townsfolk. 

So I listened.  I asked questions.  I was teachable.  Beyond the facts and the minute details, I sought to understand how it all fit together.  Grandfather’s medical mind laid out the framework but his Deacon mind – the one who understood deep down that everything we know, everything we see and experience has just one Author – but that framework in its proper context.  His lectures were both informative and catechismal.  They massaged the brain and awakened the heart.  The intensity was appropriate because he knew and I came to know what was at stake.  We only have a few short years to get it together as best we can, so it is good and proper to get busy and get serious.  He had buried a son.  Grandfather knew firsthand what we were all up against, but he also knew there was only one way forward.  Jesus Christ.  The Way.  The Truth.  The Life. 

What I did not know then was that I was being conditioned to enter into my own spiritual battles.  If we are lucky, and I am first to admit that I was with my Grandfather, we are given a mentor to show us how to walk in the faith despite the evil that surrounds us.  He was my role model.  He showed me what a warrior can look like, and let me hasten to say, dear listeners, it is nothing like what Hollywood would have us believe.  Grandfather was the real deal.  Authentic.  Unwavering in his faith.  Steadfast in his love. 

Here is a poem I wrote.  I hope it lands well. 

Casing the Joint 

The Class Six at Fort Knox was a  

favorite destination for me and Grandfather; 

we’d case the joint, he, slowly pushing a cart 

up and down each aisle as he pontificated 

about booze: the generic brand of bourbon 

being just as good as Beam, the wine, 

the beer, where it was from, how it was made. 

Inevitably, a couple of bottles would find 

themselves in the cart, and Grandfather 

would always pay – this little man in flannel and 

Old Spice who pontificated about 

pretty much anything – then we’d make our way 

back to the house, me at the wheel, 

he in the seat next to mine, carrying on with 

the lesson I had heard a thousand times before 

and wish now I could hear as many more, his 

casing long done, his last bottle bought, and me, 

walking this long aisle without a lookout.