My grandfather was a wonderful guy. Never angry. Never cruel. Interested in everything. A man with a hundred hobbies always looking for 101.
He built boats, grew potatoes, made dandelion wine, kept bees. He knew where to find catalpa trees, and what kind of fish liked the caterpillars that lived only on those trees. He knew the location of hidden springs of icy water.
He bought a little corner diner and walked up the hill to open it each morning at 4 AM. Which gave him time to make gravy, and work the salt out of the country hams that he hung in his basement. He didn’t bake the biscuits. He fried them in a cast iron skillet. He made doughnuts, and knew just when to flip them to get them golden on both sides.
He had many friends. He was an easy touch. He'd give you the shirt off his back—then be really interested to see what you'd do with it.
Everyone called him “Jim” because when he was in high school, he played a character called “Big Jim” in a musical. He was only 5’6.” His name was Gilbert. He liked to wear a hat with a feather in it.
When he was 68, he developed a pain in his neck and started visiting a chiropractor. He joked about it. But it turned out to be throat cancer.
And while he was still in the ICU, this bright, curious, gentle, genuinely good man ... bummed cigarettes. Unable to stop an addiction that began on a ship in the South Pacific, where he fought in World War II. The last time I saw him I brought him a brand-new rod and reel, and he stood in the hospital hallway, in a hospital gown, and made practice casts toward a chair in the waiting room. And we talked about when he would be out and what we would catch. And he never made it to 69.
I’m not telling you this story because cigarettes are bad. You know that. I’m telling you because of a study that was published last week.
The study is a survey of data published by an international team of 16 scientists, It suggests that climate change isn’t going to stop with “just” flooding cities around the globe, and bringing droughts and floods and generating a billion refugees. It says we are currently on track to a planet too warm to support our civilization, and quite possibly our species.
Think about it. And my grandfather. He’s been gone a long time, but I still miss him.
