The Measuring Stick

I was rummaging through our pantry the other day and ran across a family heirloom.  A yardstick, of all things!  Who uses yardsticks anymore?  This is more than just a yardstick, though.  I've broken it up in two photos as I couldn't get the whole 3 feet of it within on camera frame where you could still read it.  Here's the first part:

And here's the second:

This yardstick was produced and given to customers of The Kinder Supermarket, but I'm getting ahead of myself.  I'll back up.  My grandfather, we called him "Poppy" was originally from South Dakota.  His people immigrated from Norway and settled in South Dakota.  Life was hard - very hard.  I've read a book called "Giants in the Earth" that chronicle a hard-fought battle for existence in that cold, desolate (at that time) land.  People were tough!  Men were men!  My grandfather's family tied a rope from their home to the barn, so that in blizzard conditions, they could hang on to the rope and make it to the barn without becoming lost and frozen.  Cabin fever was a very real thing in those winters.  Families succumbed to the hardships and elements and lifelong dreams were lost.  Our story doesn't end there.

As America prepared for World War II, men from across the fruited plain descended upon Camp Claiborne in Forest Hill, Louisiana.  Over 500,000 men trained there to find combat readiness to meet Hitler's war machine.  In fact at one time, if it was a city, Camp Claiborne would have been the third largest city in Louisiana.  My grandfather would find himself training to face the enemy in Louisiana, far from his home. 

But my grandmother, who lived in nearby Oakdale, Louisiana, found herself at a USO dance at Camp Claiborne, and the rest, as they say, is history.  They were married, my mom was born and my grandfather was in the Battle of the Bulge.  After the war, my grandfather came back stateside and was the proprietor of The Kinder Supermarket.  In addition to being an entrepreneur, Poppy was on the Town Council of Kinder, a leader in his church, active in the Rotary Club and a friend to all who knew him.  He was a devoted husband, father, and grandfather.  After Poppy's passing, my uncle John would manage the store and I would have the honor of doing so as well, celebrating its 50th anniversary.

The measuring stick.  As I think about it, what an apt metaphor.  I am biased, I know, but Poppy was a giant in the earth.  In my eyes, he WAS a measuring stick.  He had his faults, sure, but there was something about him that was different.  I can recall him washing our hands as kids in the bathroom.  He'd stop the drain in the sink and soap our hands.  He didn't run the water as he didn't want to waste it.  He would tell us that we were the best kids in the world.  We weren't, not even close to it, but he told us that anyway.  

He had a kind, giving nature to him.  He gave many paper bags of groceries to people who needed it.  He would pick up a man down the street that had cerebral palsy and drive him to church every Sunday morning.  He would compost before composting was the thing to do, telling us that it took 100 years to create an inch of topsoil.  That has always stuck with me.  He taught us LOTS of things.

When things in the news shock me today, I dig my heels in.  I don't want to go where this moral relativistic culture is trying to drag us.  I often think "What would Poppy think about things going on today in culture, politics, public discourse?"  There IS right and wrong.  Poppy was a man who stood strong on his convictions of right and wrong.  He was a man of great character and integrity.  Faith and family were of utmost importance to him.  I know this all sounds like cliché, but it was real.  Most days I feel like I just don't measure up, but my grandfather was the real deal.