Half a Bear Hug
By Beverly Rose
MY GRANDFATHER BECAME MY LEgal guardian after tragedy made me mostly an orphan: a mother dead from childbirth and a disinterested dad.
Leo, named after his mother’s favorite fruit peddler, was gruff, opinionated, fiercely protective, and had only one arm.
In 1932, he was rounding a corner on a two-lane country road, his left arm dangling out the window, when an oncoming car crossed the center line, sheering the arm off. Leo crashed into a tree and was taken to the hospital by a carload of strangers. The story goes that the men were rum runners,
