I can still remember the stories
My grandpa used to tell.
About how things were done in his day,
The good old days, he’d say.
The Wild West had begun to mellow,
And its legends settled down.
A world WE saw in monochrome,
Was Technicolor to him.
He was born before the century turned,
A spry, fun loving little lad.
He was the son of a doctor,
But had dreams of wearing a star.
“Pat Garrett and Wyatt Earp
Were my hero’s.” He told me.
“I dreamed of hunting outlaws down,
Bringing them in dead or alive.
But then that damned Henry Ford
Built his horseless carriage,
And everything began to change.
My world would never be the same.”
He grew up to be a carpenter,
And was good at his trade.
He met my grandma at a diner,
Cooking and waiting tables.
“I knew she was the one.” he said.
And sure enough, he was right.
Shortly after my dad was born
The Great Depression came along.
But my grandpa persevered,
And stayed afloat for several years.
“In 38 things got rough,
and we almost lost it all.
We had nothing left, at all, to lose,
So I took the deed to our house,
And climbed aboard a train.
It took me out to Baltimore,
And I bet it all at Pimlico.”
He’d seen Seabiscuit once before,
And knew the horse could run,
But he was matched against War Admiral
Who had won the triple crown.
But grandpa had one of those feelings,
So he bet the deed to his home,
On an underdog at four to one.
He felt he had no choice left.
Seabiscuit came through that day,
And my family was saved.
Grandpa ended up a hero,
Though he didn’t see it that way.
“I was just a desperate father,
Pushed to risk all that I had,
To see my family through the storm
That troubled times had sent our way.”
And I’m here today to tell you
That he succeeded in that task.
He did it on a horse and a prayer,
And his life was on the line.
He died in nineteen eighty nine,
At the age of ninety seven.
His family is still going strong,
Because of the chances he took.
So if you ask me about hero’s,
Who I looked up to in my life,
It wasn’t Pat Garrett or Wyatt Earp,
My hero was my grandfather.

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