Just a Kid from Brooklyn: A Memoir

By Henry Aimer Harrison III

Just a Kid from Brooklyn was initially written to provide my children and their children with a family history before it was forever lost. I also wanted to leave behind a smooth glide path through life for generations not yet born.

This is my story, but it may be everymans story. It is a story about meeting head-on the challenges and struggles that we face every day and the choices that we make when we are faced with them. Some people use adversity as an excuse for failurealways the victim. For others, failure is an opportunity to try again; you always have another chance. My story is meant to inspire readers to exercise their inalienable right to the pursuit of happiness, as cited in the Declaration of Independence, whether its discovery, adventure, achievement, or even money.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Nov 4, 2015
• ISBN: 9781504958301

Henry Aimer Harrison III

The author was born and raised in Brooklyn, the oldest of four children of an often absent merchant marine father and a working mother. His parents’ relationship was marked by vitriol and conflict, and the contentious marriage ended in divorce leaving emotional scars on the author. At the age of nineteen, the author enlisted in the United States Marine Corps, and later served twenty-three years with the New York City Police Department. While working full time, the author earned his Bachelor’s degree and a law degree.

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ONE

Jane and Henry, 1874

It was a warm and sunny June 15, 1874, outside St. John the Evangelist Church in Leeds, England. Inside the candlelit church, Jane Aimer, a pretty, nineteen-year-old seamstress from Lanark, Scotland, married Henry Harrison, a handsome young cabinetmaker from Kendal, England. Jane and Henry are my great-grandparents on my father’s side. About a year after their marriage, a daughter was born to the ecstatic couple, but their happiness turned to grief when the seemingly healthy baby girl died suddenly. The cause of her death was never determined.

Joy returned to the couple, however, on August 28, 1877, when Jane Aimer Harrison gave birth again, this time to a baby boy. Jane Aimer and Henry Harrison named their son Henry Aimer Harrison after both parents. Henry Aimer Harrison would become my grandfather.

The Harrison family lived a hard-working but contented life in Lancaster, England for two years when tragedy struck again. In 1879, when my grandfather was only two years old, his father caught pneumonia and died.

Jane Harrison struggled greatly to provide for herself and her toddling son. With the help of family, the kindness of the church, and the generosity of a charitable community, Jane and her son survived the tough times.

Exactly when Jane Harrison met Matthew Barnes is lost to history, but subsequently, Jane Aimer Harrison married him. My guess is that Matthew Barnes was quite senior to Jane. Mr. Barnes was a former soldier who had fought in Britain’s war with India. He had been wounded in that war and lost a leg and had to retire from the British army. Early in their marriage, the family lived in Leeds, and Matthew Barnes provided adequately for his young wife and stepson. According to my grandfather, he liked and got along well with his stepfather. After several years of marriage, however, Jane became unhappy in her marriage to Matthew Barnes and ran off with another man, leaving young Henry—my grandfather—in Mr. Barnes’s care.

My grandfather’s last residence in England was with his stepfather in a boarding house in Barrow-in-Furnace, England. In the early-to mid-1890s, nighttime lighting was mainly by candle, which created shadows that left corners and floor areas unlit where the candlelight didn’t reach. One evening in the year 1894, my grandfather and his stepfather came into the boarding house, and Mr. Barnes bumped the stump of his lost leg against a trunk left by another boarder who was moving out. According to my grandfather, he and his stepfather sat down in front of the fireplace where his stepfather seemed to doze off. It turned out, however, that the wounded leg opened up and Mr. Barnes bled to death without anyone realizing he was injured.

At that time, my grandfather was about seventeen years old and was working as a clerk in an industrial plant. Bad times seemed to follow my grandfather. Shortly after his stepfather died, the plant where my grandfather was working caught fire and burned to the ground. At the age of seventeen, my grandfather found himself alone and penniless. There was no social safety net such as welfare or unemployment insurance. My grandfather’s mother and other relatives in England decided that Henry Aimer Harrison would live a better life with his uncle, James Aimer, in Ohio—in America.

I often wish that I had asked more questions about that stressful period in my grandfather’s young life and how my great-grandmother Jane Aimer came back into the picture to determine his future. Nevertheless, in early August of 1895, my grandfather left England from Liverpool on the HMS Germanic and sailed off to America. He arrived in New York Harbor on August 21, 1895. His final destination was Massillon, Ohio. My grandfather never saw his mother, Jane, again; she died in 1898 of a possible brain aneurysm. She was forty-two years old.

TWO

Young Henry Aimer Harrison, 1895

My grandfather had stated a few times that Massillon, Ohio, in the late 1800s, was like a frontier town. According to my grandfather, Roads were barely passable, laws were sporadically enforced, and records were shoddy and poorly kept. A few years after arriving in Massillon, my grandfather met a young girl named Maude. They both found themselves attracted to each other and it wasn’t long before they were talking about getting married, sharing a life together, and starting a family. Somewhere around this time, my grandfather relocated to Chicago, Illinois. At age sixteen, Maude may have been too young to marry without parental consent. Nevertheless, on December 27, 1899, my grandfather, at age twenty-two, married Maude Elizabeth Voght in Massillon, Ohio. Although my grandfather told me, and Maude’s birth certificate recorded, that Maude was only sixteen years of age, their marriage certificate states that Maude’s age given at that time (was) 17 …

Maude and Henry settled into married life at 1616 Indiana Avenue in Chicago, Illinois. According to the 1900 census, my grandfather gave his occupation as typesetter. By my grandfather’s account, he and Maude enjoyed a happy marriage. He wanted to become a citizen of the United States, and Maude helped him study for his citizenship test. They shared an interest in politics, and my grandfather contemplated running for office in Chicago on the Socialist ticket. Henry and Maude embraced the American dream and believed that together they would make it big someday. That dream was cut short.

Maude died of tuberculosis within a year of their marriage. Many years later, my grandfather would undergo a comprehensive medical examination that would show scar tissue on his lungs, indicating that he had tuberculosis at some time in the past. The assumption that Gramps and his doctors made was that he contracted the tuberculosis around the time of Maude’s death and never knew he had it.

Five years after arriving in Ohio and ten months after his marriage to Maude, my grandfather, on October 10, 1900, in Cook County, Illinois, became a naturalized citizen of the United States of America. Since we don’t know exactly when Maude died, we don’t know if she ever got to see her husband sworn in as a United States citizen.

Moving East

Still grieving over the loss of his young wife but buoyed by his status as an American citizen, my grandfather, Henry Aimer Harrison, followed his uncle, James Aimer, to New York. With the help of his uncle, Henry found employment in New York. He hoped that his work routine would distract him or ease the grief that he still felt over Maude’s death. It didn’t. But a few years later, while living in a boarding house in New York City, my grandfather met Gertrude Duffy.

I don’t know if my grandfather was still depressed over Maude’s death or just looking to end his loneliness, but after a brief courtship, Henry and Gertrude decided to get married. On September 7, 1904, my grandfather married Gertrude M. Duffy in St. Stephen’s Catholic Church in New York City. They would have five children together—Noreen, William, George, my father Henry Aimer Harrison II, and James.

THREE

Gramps’ Family, 1910

Records indicate that around 1910, Gertrude and Henry—with their three children Noreen, William, and George—lived at 5211 New Utrecht Avenue in Brooklyn. A year later, my father, Henry Aimer Harrison II, was born in 1911, and in 1915, the family was living at 981 55th Street in Brooklyn.

Four years after that, a list of registered voters, dated 1919, showed that Gertrude and Henry Harrison, both Democrats, were living at 1142 East 35th Street in Brooklyn, New York. This address is significant. My grandfather and grandmother would raise their family in this house. My father, Henry Aimer II, and my mother would raise their four children at 1142. Years later, Arleen and I—Henry Aimer III—would start our family with our three sons and live for five years in that same house. For almost one hundred years now, the family has referred to that house on East 35th Street simply as 1142.

The 1920 census shows that Gertrude and Henry Harrison were living at that same Brooklyn address with their four children: —Noreen, William, Henry and James. Their third child, George, is not listed, as I will explain.

The four-bedroom row house on East 35th Street, between Avenues J and K, built around the turn of the twentieth century, is the house in which my father and his brothers would be raised. It is also the house where my two sisters, my brother and I grew up. Then in 1966, Arleen and I purchased 1142 from my grandfather and my mother. Arleen and I lived there with our three sons—Scott Henry, Paul Christian, and Thomas Michael—until October 1971. Four generations of the Harrison family would live in that house.

Difficult Times, 1916

Grief seemed to follow my grandfather. Sometime in early 1916 (maybe even late 1915), my grandparents’ third child, George, as a very young boy at about six or seven years old, reached up and tugged at the handle of a pot of boiling water that was sitting on the stove. He pulled the hot water off the stove and scalded himself. According to my grandfather, George lingered in the hospital for a long time before he died of his burns. I have a copy of a receipt for twenty dollars paid by my grandfather to Calvary Cemetery, for the privilege of burial in one grave No. 14 in Plot 00 Section 41 Range 34 in CALVARY CEMETERY … Dated, New York, Aug. 25, 1916. I believe that is George’s burial site. He would have been seven years old at the time of his death. Forty years later, George’s mother, Gertrude Harrison, would be buried at the same site.

My grandparents, Henry and Gertrude, were devastated with grief over the lengthy suffering and death of their third child. My grandmother, presumably blaming herself for her son’s death, was inconsolable and fell into a deep depression. She ultimately suffered a nervous breakdown. The treatment, early in the twentieth century, was to confine such patients to a mental institution. My grandmother spent the rest of her life in a state mental hospital.

To my knowledge, my grandfather never brought his wife home, and never spoke about her that I remember. I didn’t even know that my grandfather had a wife. As a child, I wondered why my maternal grandmother, Anna Hickey, and my grandfather, Henry Harrison, weren’t married. At some point I asked my mother and she explained that Gramps was my dad’s father and my grandmother was my mom’s mother. Even my mother didn’t tell me about my Grandmother Gertrude. Several years passed before I learned the truth.

One warm day in 1956, when I was home alone, a man came to the front door and asked my name. I don’t know what he thought but I told him my name, a name that I happened to share with my father and grandfather, and all three of us lived at 1142. The man then asked me to sign for a letter addressed to Henry Harrison. I opened the letter and found a notice that Gertrude Harrison had died at Binghamton State Hospital, Binghamton, New York at 1:20 P.M. on September 6, 1956. Growing up in the same house with two other Henrys meant that you could often expect to receive mail that was already opened. Usually, it was my father or grandfather opening my mail. The death notice was the only time I ever opened a letter addressed to one of them.

Early on, my Aunt Noreen had also suffered a nervous breakdown. She was confined to the mental hospital at Creedmoor in Queens County, New York. During Noreen’s confinement, however, my grandfather and father did talk about her, and my grandfather did bring her home at times.

Noreen, who was older than my parents, always responded to people, even little children, with intense fear. She would cling to my grandfather’s arm or leg depending on whether he was sitting or standing. If I approached my grandfather, Noreen would try to hide behind him. She lived long enough to benefit from the advances made in mental health therapies, and many years later, Noreen was released from Creedmoor and into the custody of a family who was paid by the State of New York to care for her.Thereafter, Noreen seemed to lose that terrible fear and acted quite normal when she came home for a visit. I presumed it was the effectiveness of modern psychotropic drugs that helped alleviate her fear but some have suggested that just being released from the mental institution was the real reason for her progress. I was quite young when I last saw Noreen. Since the family rarely talked about her, I don’t know how her life ended up but records show she died on April 15, 1990 at the age of eighty-four.

When my grandmother was institutionalized, my grandfather had a difficult time trying to earn a living wage while raising his four children. He resolved his problem by putting his two youngest sons, my father and his younger brother, James, into an orphanage until they were old enough to fend for themselves. This was not uncommon early in the twentieth century. My grandfather had no extended family to fall back on for support, and there were no governmental safety nets or day care centers at that time

While researching this event, I became aware of several other people who personally or historically experienced life in an orphanage or a home as some called it. I was the oldest of four rambunctious children, and we often got rowdy. On some of those occasions, our caretaker, perhaps our grandfather or our elderly Great Aunt Nellie Kehoe would threaten to send us to a home if we didn’t behave. We didn’t take the threat seriously, but looking back, the threat struck me as particularly odd and probably a product of an earlier culture where such confinement often did occur.

My father was seven years older than his brother James. According to my father, I saw my job as to protect my little brother. The orphanage was a dog-eat-dog institution. I not only had to fight tooth and nail for myself but also had to fight my little brother’s battles.

Why didn’t you run away? I asked.

We often talked about it but it seemed too risky.

Why?

It was a terrible place, he said. One time, another couple of kids, tough Italian kids, attempted to escape. They got caught and all the kids in the orphanage were brought into an auditorium and seated. Then a mean looking guy in charge of discipline got up on the stage and raged about how dangerous it was on the outside, and how it was his job to protect us. He warned us that children who tried to escape would face harsh punishment. Then the boys who did try to get away were brought onto the stage and severely whipped with belts.

Geez, was all that I could say.

It had its effect. The tough kids were screaming, and they didn’t look tough anymore. And trying to escape didn’t seem like a good idea either.

My father and his brother eventually returned home. My father, who never graduated from high school, had to go to work and bring his paycheck home to his father. My father, his older brother, Bill, and my grandfather all worked and saved to make sure that the youngest son, James, got a college prep high school diploma. James was the only one of his generation to get a college education.

FOUR

Third Generation

When I was around three years old, my mother and father, my sister, Margot and I moved into my grandfather’s house at 1142 East 35th Street in Brooklyn. I would live the rest of my childhood and several years as a young adult in that house.

My second sister, Cecily, was born after we moved to the house, and about two years later my brother, Gregory, was born. We had lots of fun in 1142 and some awful times.

I’ve no recollection of my grandfather before we moved into his house. He was about seventy years old at that time and he always looked the same to me. Old, but he acted young at heart. He lived to the age of ninety-seven but never seemed to look any older than he did at seventy. The little hair he had on his head was thin, wispy and white. He was a bit wide in the waist but no one would call him fat. He was soft-spoken, measured his words, always calm and possessed of wisdom tempered by years. Every time Dick Cheney, the former vice president, was interviewed or debated on television, I thought of Gramps. They look alike. They both measure their words, and manifest a soft, low-pitched and reassuring tone of voice.

As a very young boy, I remember my Uncle James visiting us with his wife, my Aunt Mildred. Uncle James, most often called Jim, was tall and handsome and Aunt Mildred was pretty, vibrant and happy. I had a little boy crush on my Aunt Mildred. The two of them laughed a lot and made my parents laugh. My uncle was an officer in the Air Force so the visits were rare but always memorable. My Aunt Mildred and Uncle Jim had a daughter, Carol Ann. She was born in November 1943, the same year that my sister, Margot was born. I don’t remember ever seeing Carol Ann. I’m told there is a picture of Carol Ann and another baby, believed to be Margot, in the same baby carriage.

Sadness, however, seemed always ready to walk through our front door. There came a time while I was still a very young child, about four years old, when I heard my mother crying and my father telling her that Jim and Mildred’s little girl had died. I thought I heard words like Scarlet Fever or Rheumatic Fever but, according to my cousin, Linda Mitchell, Uncle Jim’s daughter, Carol died of miliary tuberculosis – contributory causes – cardiac murmurs and rheumatic heart disease – on November 6, 1945.

My grandfather’s oldest son, Bill, seemed to me to be a rugged but kind man. He married my Aunt Ann and they had two daughters, Barbara Ann and Nancy. I loved Uncle Bill like a father. I wished my name were Bill.

Mom, why didn’t you call me William? I once asked.

Because you were named after your father.

But I love the name Bill, I said.

Your father and I like the name Bill too. We even talked about giving you that name in honor of your Uncle Bill. But, we thought, what if Uncle Bill and Aunt Ann have a little boy of their own? They might want to name their son William. Then we’d have two Bill Harrisons.

My consolation prize was that I picked William as my Confirmation name.

Bill and Ann were warm and generous people who were always willing to help out our family when times were tough. As a young child, I remember a scene that took place in our living room in 1142. It was a sad scene. My mother and Uncle Bill and I, as I remember it, were the only people in the room. My mother wasn’t crying but her speech was a little weepy, I’m beside myself, Bill.

Please Grace, is there anything we can do to help? he asked.

I don’t think anyone can help, she answered. Harry’s check is gone the day after he gets it. They’re threatening to shut off our electricity. Just feeding four kids … she paused. I need a job just to feed the kids but who’s going to take care of four young kids while I go out to work?

After listening patiently, Uncle Bill took a one hundred dollar bill from his pocket and urged, Please Grace, take this. It should help a little.

No! No but thank you, Bill. I just can’t take it.

It’s just a loan, Grace. Pay me back when you can. No rush. Please.

There may have been some more push back and forth but it ended with my mother keeping the money and promising to pay it back. I remember this incident so well because of the eye-popping effect that the sight of a hundred dollar bill had on me. It was like a thousand dollars to me and this was the mid 1940s. One hundred dollars was a lot of money.

Our cousins Barbara and Nancy were sweet, good-natured girls. I particularly remember Barbara as an easy laugher and lots of fun to be with. We all got along so well in those early years. I only remember good times with them.

When I was still a young boy, about nine years old, tragedy again struck the Harrison family. Uncle Bill, like my father, was a merchant marine. Due to some economic reason, he lost his seagoing job and found himself working at repairing tugboats in New York Harbor.

Barbara was seven years old when her sister, Nancy, was born. Only a few weeks later, on the day of Nancy’s christening, Aunt Ann got a telephone call from Uncle Bill saying that he got stuck at work and would be a little late to the christening. No one ever heard from Uncle Bill again. According to Barbara, several months passed before her mother learned that her husband had been found months earlier floating in New York harbor. He wasn’t identified at that time and was buried. Uncle Bill’s body was disinterred and properly identified. He was about forty-three years old when he died.

We were told that he fell to his death from his boat while it was in the harbor. It was hard to believe that an experienced seaman accidentally fell off a boat and drowned. Foul play was considered a possibility and there was a police investigation into his death but no conclusive results were ever reached.

Grief seemed to be an inescapable part of the Harrison story. Four years later, Uncle Bill’s widow, Aunt Ann, died of cancer leaving her two daughters parentless. Aunt Ann was in her early to mid forties. Barbara, her older daughter, was eleven years old. Nancy was four. My two young cousins were placed in the custody of their grandmother, Aunt Ann’s mother. But after Aunt Ann died, I never, as a child, saw Barbara and Nancy again. My sister Margot believes that Aunt Ann’s side of the family didn’t care much for the Harrison side of the family. Margot felt that they didn’t approve of drinking which was abundant in the Harrison house. Cecily felt that perhaps we weren’t proper enough for Aunt Ann’s side of the family. I don’t remember my brother or I thinking too deeply about why we never saw them again. But every so often I would think about fun times when they visited. Mostly, I remember Barbara who was closer to me in age.

FIVE

Walks With Gramps

My grandfather never raised his voice. On one occasion, when my sisters, brother and I were acting rambunctious, fighting and really getting under his skin, my grandfather, in frustration, said in a calm voice just loud enough to be heard, If you don’t stop this nonsense, I’m going on the lam. That was as angry as I’d ever seen him get. My sisters, brother and I laughed but obeyed. We retell this story every so often and still laugh when we do.

Barring hurricanes and blizzards, my grandfather took a walk everyday. As a child, I often accompanied him on those walks. To him the walks were his daily exercise; to me, they were Lewis and Clark expeditions. I loved the idea of exploring. Gramps always allowed me to direct our walks. I would walk a few blocks in one direction then say, "Let’s turn here," and point to the right. I might go another block and point to the left. I was always so comfortable knowing that I’d never get lost.

On these early walks, I called my grandfather Dad because that’s what my mother and father called him. One day, my mother sat me down to explain that I shouldn’t call my grandfather dad.

Why? I asked.

Because he’s not your dad. He’s your father’s dad. Your grandfather gets embarrassed when you call him dad in front of people who don’t know he’s your grandfather. He feels people think such an old man and he has such a young son.

What should I call him?

Grandpa is fine or Grandfather.

Ultimately, Gramps became his name.

When I was about six years old, Gramps and I went out for one of our walks. I could go wherever I wanted to go. It was like exploring with a professional guide. We never got lost. One time shortly after I started the first grade at Our Lady Help of Christians, we discovered a block where several of my classmates lived; they were playing in the street. It was like discovering gold. I joined in and had a grand time forgetting all about my waiting grandfather. My grandfather watched for over two hours while I played with my newly discovered friends. Then he insisted that we go home before mom got worried. He never complained and we took many more of those walks.

As I got older, I looked forward to times when I could get in a walk with Gramps. I grew to cherish the conversations. He would answer any question that came into my mind. No matter how personal. He would listen to whatever I had to say no matter how small or insignificant. On those trips I learned about his harsh childhood in late nineteenth century England, the early death of his father, the death of his stepfather and his lonely ocean voyage to America at the age of seventeen unaccompanied by a parent or any relative.

Gramps was the most patient and gentle man I ever knew. He would catch a mouse live, or even a fly, and put it outside the house rather than kill it. Half the time the mouse would move right back into the house. Nothing ever seemed to excite or anger Gramps. He was totally unflappable. On one of our many walks, I said to him, Gramps, you always seem so calm and relaxed.

I wasn’t always so calm, he said. When I was a young man, a doctor once told me that I’d better stop getting so excited about things I have no control over or risk bad health and an early death.

What did you do? I asked.

Bit by bit I tried different things. I started a walking regimen for exercise and I tried meditating for relaxation. They say music calms the savage beast so I tried to learn to play an instrument. I tinkered with a mandolin when I was young so I tried a couple of other strings like the banjo and the guitar. I even tried to learn the accordion.

My grandfather did not drink much alcohol. Occasionally he would have a glass of wine or beer. He would say, Just enough to thin the blood. According to my grandfather, it was Shakespeare who said something to the effect that, Drinking alcohol was like putting a thief into your mouth to steal your brains. I never met any scholar who recognized these words as coming from Shakespeare. Nevertheless, I thought of them as profound words of wisdom from my grandfather.

An example of Gramps’ easy-going ways could be spotted in the paint on the window frames. There was a time when my grandfather felt the windows needed to be painted. He broke out the drop cloths, paint, paintbrushes and turpentine and got to work. He didn’t want to risk a fall so he never used a ladder. He would paint only as high as he could reach. It would stay that way until my father got the paint and finished the job.

When my grandfather was ninety-two years old he underwent prostate surgery. His problem was first diagnosed when he was seventy-two years old. At that time, he was considered too old for such surgery. But his prostate problem slowly grew worse and with the advance of medical technology over twenty years, the surgery was now viable. Gramps went through extensive pre-surgery testing and screening. The tests showed scarring on the lungs indicating that he had contacted tuberculosis earlier in his life. We were reminded of Gramps’ first love, Maude and her death from tuberculosis at seventeen.

There were always little turf wars going on in 1142 for bedroom space and bathroom time. Usually the criteria for solving the disputes were seniority and gender. But once I left home, all bets were off. In 1960 at the age of nineteen, I enlisted in the Marine Corps. When I returned three years later, I had to share a bedroom with my grandfather. That was a new experience but not uncomfortable. After all, I spent the last three years sharing my bedroom with strangers. Gramps was an interesting and informative conversationalist and always made me feel welcome.

The bedroom that my grandfather and I shared had plaster walls painted beige and outlined with white enamel woodwork. There was a ten by twelve carpet on the shiny oak floor that didn’t reach the walls. The carpet was worn in well-traveled aisles particularly between the two beds. There was a small piece of notepaper taped to the wall on my grandfather’s side of the room. On that paper, my grandfather had penciled in a dot about the size of a pea. That dot was the focal point for Gramps when he meditated. Meditation, he told me, was one of his methods of coping with stress.

A guitar leaned against the wall on my grandfather’s side of the room. He was teaching himself how to play. He could play little ditties or strum a few chords. I’d watch him strum a guitar with a relaxed persistence. I don’t think he ever played a tune that I recognized. Gramps claimed the exercise was relaxing. In the basement of the house, Gramps also stored a four-stringed banjo, a mandolin and an accordion, each of which he taught himself to play. I still have his banjo. A few years ago, I took a couple of banjo lessons but it was too little too late. It was never too late for Gramps to learn something new. He even taught himself stenography with the idea that it was important to be able to jot down new ideas or important notes.

During that year, we continued taking our walks and sharing our thoughts. He was reassuring about things like finding a job, Employers love servicemen. You just got out of the marines; you’ll have no problem. He was interested in my concerns over adjusting to civilian life and getting married. Arleen and I had gotten engaged and were planning to get married.

Young love is like no other, he said. It’s the passion in youth. That passion, like eyesight and hearing, inevitably fades with age but true love doesn’t. My grandfather seemed to be looking into the distance when he said that, and I wondered if he was thinking of Maude.

President Kennedy was shot and killed that year. Like most Americans, my grandfather was deeply pained. I suffered with him, in part because the assassination of our president was so tragic but perhaps more so because Gramps was feeling such pain.

My grandfather was a lifelong Democrat and truly believed in the party’s socio-centric political philosophy. When I registered Republican, we had new topics to discuss. And discuss we did without ever an angry word or hard feelings. I was excited about being able to vote for the first time and found the conservative philosophy of Senator Barry Goldwater appealing. Gramps posited the Democratic case but seemed to enjoy my excitement at being able to vote.

"The polls are showing Johnson