My grandma, my mom and I went to see Bobby last night. That is the movie about the patrons and workers at the Ambassador Hotel the night that Bobby Kennedy was shot and killed. I’m a big history buff, so I found it very interesting. Not that I’m naive enough to think that every one of these events happened. But I LOVED the clothing and the hairstyles and the cars. It was all very 1968 [which is good since that's when the movie took place].

Plus there were a couple of hometown boys in the movie. When you’re from the midwest you get a little excited when you see people you know on the big screen. Although my grandma’s not totally up on her Hollywood who’s who.

Grandma: Is that Adam Kutcher?

Me: Ashton? Yes.

Grandma: What?

Me: Ashton. His name is Ashton.

Grandma: Yeah, Adam.

Me: *giving up* Yep, that’s him.

After the movie and some dinner, we headed back to my grandma’s house. She forced me to stop by because I had forgotten the turkey she had wrapped up for me on Thanksgiving night. I wanted to go through some of her old photo albums anyway. I have a video project for class. It’s due in a week and a half and I haven’t even started it yet. I decided I wanted to do a tribute to my grandpa.

Grandpa was a local celebrity. He was a sports writer for our local paper for thirty-five years when he passed away on April 13, 1982 at the age of 58. When he died there were tributes in the paper for days. Each of the sports writers wrote really great stories about him. The sports editor wrote a little tribute. The local softball groups gave their respects. And even fans wrote in to the editor to express their condolescences. And grandma kept every one of those newspaper clippings.

I grabbed all of the stuff to scan. But the one thing I found that I love the most is this picture:

This is Grandpa typing up a story in the sports room for the next day’s paper. This is what he loved. He loved all things sports. He wrote about sports. He attended sports events. He played sports. He coached sports. Everything from football, to softball, to wrestling and gymnastics.

He also loved kids. To this day, Grandma still runs in to kids [who are now adults and many of them are now grandparents] that Grandpa coached. On Christmas morning, Grandpa was right there on the floor helping me put together my doll bed. At the time of his death, I was the only grandchild and he spoiled me rotten.

I was just two months away from my eighth birthday when Grandpa died. So there was a lot about Grandpa I didn’t know. Reading through all of these tributes written by the people who knew him for years has been very sad and yet still very exciting. It’s been almost twenty-five years since we lost him to cancer. We don’t really talk about him much anymore. So it’s been fun to get to know him through the eyes of those who loved and admired him.

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 26th, 2006 at 12:35 pm and is filed under A day in our life, Misty watercolor memories. Comments are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.