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The last time I saw my grandfather was in 1996 when he was a resident of the Colonial Nursing home. I had flown up from Texas (where my mother lived at time) to Illinois to visit my father and one, sunny, cool autumn afternoon I spent a few hours with my grandfather. He had been a resident of the nursing home since my grandmother passed away in 1995.

He wasn't my biological grandfather having adopted my father when he was eight. I wouldn't find out until I was a freshman in high school, but by then it didn't make any difference. He was my grandfather. My granddad. My grandpa.

He had lived a long and hard life with the sum of the parts being greater than the whole in what he achieved. Born in 1911, he was old enough to remember the First World War and later he would be drafted in the second one. He had gone through and survived The Great Depression and for the rest of his life he watched his money carefully and never lived beyond his means. He was in his 30s when his draft notice came up during World War II and wouldn't see any action, but did get to see a lot of the States being shipped from one base to another Camp Jackson in South Carolina, Camp Polk in Louisiana, and finally Camp Irwin in the Mojave Desert. No doubt he would have been part of the Japanese invasion force had the war not ended in August 1945.

He used to boast that he was a quarter Native American, but when challenged to say what tribe, he didn't know. One thing was certain, he was very, very proud of his Native American ancestry. I didn't care what tribe either, though I suspect it was one from Illinois.

He was a self-made man and a lot had to do with having survived The Great Depression. He valued the little things in life and for as long as I knew him never took anything for granted. Perhaps a lot had to do with life being simple for him, a routine without much variation. Friday or Saturday night was time for his weekly trip to one of liquor stores in LaSalle to stock up on Drewerys or Meister Brau. Sometimes he would splurge and buy Falstaff.

Friday nights also meant free fish in most of the bars he went to with my grandmother. It was a religious thing no meat on Fridays and many neighborhood bars and taverns (those that had a kitchen) got into the routine of frying up perch every Friday. For my grandparents it was the Dew Drop Inn followed by the Rainbow Tap.

Saturday night was time for a long bath (after he had gone to the liquor store) followed by an evening in front of short-wave radio listening

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