My grandparents in the mid-1970s. They had taken me on at trip to Clingman’s Dome in the Smokies.
My grandfather wasn’t particularly tall but to me he was giant. He was an incredibly smart man — a man who had grown up with little, worked at a sawmill and then later as an accountant at Alcoa. I’ve seen him do math in his head that would require me to use a calculator. Like many of our parents and grandparents, the Great Depression honed him. I remember him straightening nails to reuse them, turning off the heat in our rooms to avoid paying TVA and driving a car forever. I once asked him what MAX meant on the car’s air conditioner. He replied, “We don’t use that — it costs money.” Much of what my cousin Dave talks about on the radio is the example our grandfather set. He built the family cabin on Fort Loudon Lake. Summer vacation with him meant you were going to work on a project — you built seawalls, cut grass, painted — he was a man of action. He was also a giving man. And he never hurt for money.
He came across as serious but was a very funny man with a dry and at times acidic wit. I remember him making me laugh time and time again. He had quirks — he hated it when my grandmother drove and would coach her every mile of the way. He’d take his foot on and off the gas while driving — it was unsettling sometimes. He also had a temper — the Ramsey temper but he never aimed it toward me. He also waterskied at age 72 — a record that stood in our family until my dad did it at age 78. He loved to read and always had a book in his hand. For a man barely 5′ 8″, he ate like was he nine-feet tall. Yeast rolls were his desert. Watching him eat on Thanksgiving was a sight to behold.
He died right after my wife and I got married but we were blessed that he was at the wedding in his bright yellow suit. He looked a bit like Popeye to me that day. I smile while I see him in our wedding pictures.
I’ve always wondered what he’d think of today’s world. He’d probably have laughed at the Great Recession. He’d have no time for social media and would shake his head at the self-designated victims who troll upon it. I have many of his views on work, self reliance and discipline — but I fail to live up to his standards most days. He didn’t really put up with BS. Or whiners. But I can’t remember him sitting around complaining, either. He just went out and got to work. He was proud of me as a kid. I think he would be today, too. He loved his grandchildren. All my grandparents did. I am a lucky man.
As I get older, I discover the cruelest aspect of death is that you lose the ability to be with the people who you need to talk to the most. I’d love to talk to my grandfather today. The best I can do is live by his example.
Lynn B. Ramsey lives on in his kids, grandkids and great grandkids.