He was the oldest of 18 children and one of several of the boys in his family who left their home on East Capitol Street in Washington, D.C. to serve in the United States Navy during World War II. After he came back he worked as an accountant in the Navy Department (or as my grandmother called it "down at the Navy Yard") for a few decades until a heart attack forced retirement and he spent the rest of his life doing the books for our church and in Annapolis for a state delegate.
I've been lucky to have several models for what I call integrity in my life but he was one of the first and by far one of the few most crucial. He was my father's father, and my father and one of my uncles served in the Navy in Vietnam.
He died in 1988, when I was 17, and I find myself typing this crying like it was yesterday because in a lot of ways it may as well have been.
We who were raised by people who understood how to act and especially how to treat others are lucky for what may have rubbed off.
Comments