My Hero
When I was young, and my ambitions were uncertain, I wanted nothing more than to be like my grandfather.
During summers following my sophomore year of high school, and for intermittent periods thereafter, I had the singular pleasure of serving as his driver. For those of you who haven't met him, my grandpa is one of the coolest guys anyone could ever hope to meet.
He grew up on the streets in the near South Side, or the "Old Neighborhood" as he likes to call it, around Halsted and Taylor, in the Italian slums that were razed in a two-pronged effort by Mayor Daley the First: to make room for the University of Illinois at Chicago, and to disperse the Italian vote.
Despite being overweight for most of his life, and being of short stature (my mom, who I've always considered to be a midget, looks him squarely in the eye when standing), he's one of those people who commands instant attention the second he walks into a room. He is famous in certain circles for almost constantly smoking a cigar. He exudes a transcendent personality and overwhelmingly charming quality. This is due in part to his fascinating array of pinkie rings, his closets full of tailored leisure clothes, his deep caramel skin, his full head of hair at 89, his thick street-kid accent, and his tendency to treat everyone with respect and good humor. He's an unforgettable gentleman of a bygone era, the type of personality that's so original and genuine that his manner of being is sure to expire from the American landscape as soon as he does.
He is, above all else, a self-made man. My grandma's father was a hard-ass Lithuanian tavern owner who, once every year, would lock himself up alone in his bar, throw on his Prussian military uniform, and drink himself into a rage. Yet, this was the man who my grandpa had no choice but to turn to for a start-up loan for a business, and miraculously, my great-grandfather granted his request. Grandpa built one liquor store, then two, then three, and at one point oversaw a large chain whose delivery zone spread out all over the greater Chicagoland area. Additionally, he accumulated a number of commercial properties of various types and sizes, some of which we kept and allow me to make an independent living to this day.
The two of us must have made for some sight back in my high school days: the long-haired know-it-all hippie intellectual, and the hardscrabble street-educated self-made millionaire, arguing over orange juice and bagels at 7 a.m. in the bakery near his house. We would engage in heated discussions about all manner of things, almost always capped off by him delivering some folksy bit of wisdom. He would regale me with anecdote about past business deals, all of which I had heard time and time again yet could never get enough of. He would ask me what I was studying in school, and I'd try to explain to him various points about philosophy, art and religion. Without fail, whenever I finished up one of my mini-lectures, he would wave a dismissive hand and say, "I didn't graduate from high school; I had to work to help support my family."
The thing that always gets me is, I can't help but wonder what he would have become if he had had half the advantages that were handed to me on a silver platter. Maybe he would have been Warren Buffett, or a professor at Harvard, or even the president of the United States. He has the soul of a great man, and though he is a great man, I mean it as the soul of a Great Man. In another life, he was probably Ghengis Khan or Charlemagne or another visionary leader capable of leading men to doing grand things.
I can honestly say that I learned far more about business and the world from him than I did in either college or graduate school. Essentially, his wisdom revolved around five simple maxims:
1. Always buy dirt, because God don't make it no more.
2. The world is complicated, so keep your business simple.
3. Take care of your people, and your people will take care of you.
4. Never sell anything that sells.
5. Get up early and get back home early, or you'll spend your whole life sitting in traffic.
There isn't a day that goes by that I don't recall one story or another about him, whether it's something he did before I was born or something we did with him in the lead, that either causes me to take pause to think or applies directly to a situation I'm in the midst of handling.
Our conversations more often than not proved to be vexing tests of will. He would beg me not to drink. I would point out that it was ironic for a man who made a fortune selling liquor to despise drinking. He would tell me to stay in school. I would point out that he dropped out at 16 and did better than most. He would tell me to listen to my father. I would remind him that he never seemed to listen to my dad. We were like Mutt and Jeff -- so diametrically opposed in nearly every way imaginable, yet somehow cut from the same cloth.
For as long as I can remember, he has been my best friend, and he remains so today. Though enfeebled as the result of a gastrointestinal condition (yet another irony -- the man who never drank has come down with a chronic liver problem), his eyes still light up with excitement when I talk to him about my vision for taking his businesses in the 21st century. A couple of years ago, when he turned 87, my dad -- his trusted counselor -- gently advised him to call it quits. He would have worked forever if it was up to him; but now, when I ask explicitly him for advice, he says, "I'm retired; you and your father figure it out." But there are times when he can't help himself, and when he comes to me with an urge to inquire, his enthusiasm for the great joy that comes with industry cannot be contained.
We still spend a great deal of time together. I was going to go down to Florida to bring him home toward the end of May, but he wasn't feeling well (he hates doctors even more than I do) so my cousin brought him home a couple weeks early. He has a house near to ours, but we're all more comfortable with him living under my parents' watchful eyes at their house. So at least four times a week, we end up sitting around together and watching C-SPAN, Fox News, baseball or golf. Most of the time we are silent, but it's a glorious silence, the kind that screams affection and understanding. He smokes his cigars; I smoke my cigarettes; and we enjoy the feeling of mutual admiration that flows between a master and his protege.
He's on a variety of medications to counteract his condition, the most physically detrimental of which is a blood thinner aimed at keeping his pulse rate to a minimum. As a result, he often complains that he is dizzy and tired. However, hhe has slowly accepted the reality that if and when his the capillaries near his neck burst open, we might have a chance to rush him to the hospital before he suffocates on his own blood.
I remember being a little kid and curling up in bed with him and my grandma and thinking, "Grandpa is boiling alive; how is grandma not sweating her ass off?!" He was always so hot, whether because he was a big fat guy or such was the energy that emanated from deep within him. These days, however, he is ice cold, regardless of how many sweaters he wears or how many blankets he puts over his legs, and it eerily corresponds to the viscousness of his movements. A few nights ago, we were sitting on the couch eating dinner and watching the Cubs game, and he casually dropped his hand onto my forearm. I was startled to feel how freezing cold his hand felt, which I mentioned to him. He frowned slightly and said, "Pat, it's these drugs they got me on. I can't do nothing about it." He looked back at the t.v. inquiring as to the Cubs' record, thereby deftly changing the topic away from his own mortality and toward something easier to comprehend.
Four years ago, my grandma became very ill as a result of a variety of medical complications, not least of which was Alzheimer's, the cruelest of all diseases. Her deterioration took a major toll on him. He was scared of leaving her alone or going to sleep without his hearing aids on, lest she wander off or need his help. Long after justifiability, he refused to place her in a nursing home. So, when one day she complained more than usual that she wasn't feeling well, he took her to the hospital one last time. I moved into her hospital room with him to look after him looking after her, so that we could take turns going out to do errands and monitoring her decline over three long weeks in the intensive care unit. It was the most trying time of my life -- not so much watching her die, because she was a sick lady for most of her life (she beat cancer at 76), and everyone was aware that the end was impending. The thing that got to me was the outpouring of unconditional love that resulted from his watching her fade away, his constant companion for 66 years, the ready fountain of support that allowed him to go out and build his empire.
I'll never forget the day before she died -- it was the second anniversary of 9/11, and when I walked into the room to find that her situation had suddenly passed the point of no return, he looked up at me and said, "This is it. We'll always remember this day." I walked to the window and looked out at the Hancock and Sears Tower some 15 miles off in the distance, and I began to sob uncontrollably. I never remembered him being sad in his whole life, but even he couldn't help himself from sobbing at the funeral. I partly take the blame for this; I broke into sobs during her eulogy, and I wanted to be strong for him. But there was nothing I could do about it; I kept looking at his state of despair, and my sadness got the best of me.
Time and again, Grandpa taught me that practical men of character deal with realities head-on. So, I wonder what I will say when I am called on to give his eulogy, as I have done for each of my other two deceased grandparents. I am uncertain as to whether I will have the strength or ability to capture his spirit and essence without making a sobbing mess of myself. Because grandpa would not want me to react that way -- not me, his mini-me, his pet project, his buddy. He is my hero and always will be, and I keep reminding myself that he is not dead yet, that I still have time to learn from him, and that as long as I live, so will something of him, the most admirable man I've ever known, my hero.
During summers following my sophomore year of high school, and for intermittent periods thereafter, I had the singular pleasure of serving as his driver. For those of you who haven't met him, my grandpa is one of the coolest guys anyone could ever hope to meet.
He grew up on the streets in the near South Side, or the "Old Neighborhood" as he likes to call it, around Halsted and Taylor, in the Italian slums that were razed in a two-pronged effort by Mayor Daley the First: to make room for the University of Illinois at Chicago, and to disperse the Italian vote.
Despite being overweight for most of his life, and being of short stature (my mom, who I've always considered to be a midget, looks him squarely in the eye when standing), he's one of those people who commands instant attention the second he walks into a room. He is famous in certain circles for almost constantly smoking a cigar. He exudes a transcendent personality and overwhelmingly charming quality. This is due in part to his fascinating array of pinkie rings, his closets full of tailored leisure clothes, his deep caramel skin, his full head of hair at 89, his thick street-kid accent, and his tendency to treat everyone with respect and good humor. He's an unforgettable gentleman of a bygone era, the type of personality that's so original and genuine that his manner of being is sure to expire from the American landscape as soon as he does.
He is, above all else, a self-made man. My grandma's father was a hard-ass Lithuanian tavern owner who, once every year, would lock himself up alone in his bar, throw on his Prussian military uniform, and drink himself into a rage. Yet, this was the man who my grandpa had no choice but to turn to for a start-up loan for a business, and miraculously, my great-grandfather granted his request. Grandpa built one liquor store, then two, then three, and at one point oversaw a large chain whose delivery zone spread out all over the greater Chicagoland area. Additionally, he accumulated a number of commercial properties of various types and sizes, some of which we kept and allow me to make an independent living to this day.
The two of us must have made for some sight back in my high school days: the long-haired know-it-all hippie intellectual, and the hardscrabble street-educated self-made millionaire, arguing over orange juice and bagels at 7 a.m. in the bakery near his house. We would engage in heated discussions about all manner of things, almost always capped off by him delivering some folksy bit of wisdom. He would regale me with anecdote about past business deals, all of which I had heard time and time again yet could never get enough of. He would ask me what I was studying in school, and I'd try to explain to him various points about philosophy, art and religion. Without fail, whenever I finished up one of my mini-lectures, he would wave a dismissive hand and say, "I didn't graduate from high school; I had to work to help support my family."
The thing that always gets me is, I can't help but wonder what he would have become if he had had half the advantages that were handed to me on a silver platter. Maybe he would have been Warren Buffett, or a professor at Harvard, or even the president of the United States. He has the soul of a great man, and though he is a great man, I mean it as the soul of a Great Man. In another life, he was probably Ghengis Khan or Charlemagne or another visionary leader capable of leading men to doing grand things.
I can honestly say that I learned far more about business and the world from him than I did in either college or graduate school. Essentially, his wisdom revolved around five simple maxims:
1. Always buy dirt, because God don't make it no more.
2. The world is complicated, so keep your business simple.
3. Take care of your people, and your people will take care of you.
4. Never sell anything that sells.
5. Get up early and get back home early, or you'll spend your whole life sitting in traffic.
There isn't a day that goes by that I don't recall one story or another about him, whether it's something he did before I was born or something we did with him in the lead, that either causes me to take pause to think or applies directly to a situation I'm in the midst of handling.
Our conversations more often than not proved to be vexing tests of will. He would beg me not to drink. I would point out that it was ironic for a man who made a fortune selling liquor to despise drinking. He would tell me to stay in school. I would point out that he dropped out at 16 and did better than most. He would tell me to listen to my father. I would remind him that he never seemed to listen to my dad. We were like Mutt and Jeff -- so diametrically opposed in nearly every way imaginable, yet somehow cut from the same cloth.
For as long as I can remember, he has been my best friend, and he remains so today. Though enfeebled as the result of a gastrointestinal condition (yet another irony -- the man who never drank has come down with a chronic liver problem), his eyes still light up with excitement when I talk to him about my vision for taking his businesses in the 21st century. A couple of years ago, when he turned 87, my dad -- his trusted counselor -- gently advised him to call it quits. He would have worked forever if it was up to him; but now, when I ask explicitly him for advice, he says, "I'm retired; you and your father figure it out." But there are times when he can't help himself, and when he comes to me with an urge to inquire, his enthusiasm for the great joy that comes with industry cannot be contained.
We still spend a great deal of time together. I was going to go down to Florida to bring him home toward the end of May, but he wasn't feeling well (he hates doctors even more than I do) so my cousin brought him home a couple weeks early. He has a house near to ours, but we're all more comfortable with him living under my parents' watchful eyes at their house. So at least four times a week, we end up sitting around together and watching C-SPAN, Fox News, baseball or golf. Most of the time we are silent, but it's a glorious silence, the kind that screams affection and understanding. He smokes his cigars; I smoke my cigarettes; and we enjoy the feeling of mutual admiration that flows between a master and his protege.
He's on a variety of medications to counteract his condition, the most physically detrimental of which is a blood thinner aimed at keeping his pulse rate to a minimum. As a result, he often complains that he is dizzy and tired. However, hhe has slowly accepted the reality that if and when his the capillaries near his neck burst open, we might have a chance to rush him to the hospital before he suffocates on his own blood.
I remember being a little kid and curling up in bed with him and my grandma and thinking, "Grandpa is boiling alive; how is grandma not sweating her ass off?!" He was always so hot, whether because he was a big fat guy or such was the energy that emanated from deep within him. These days, however, he is ice cold, regardless of how many sweaters he wears or how many blankets he puts over his legs, and it eerily corresponds to the viscousness of his movements. A few nights ago, we were sitting on the couch eating dinner and watching the Cubs game, and he casually dropped his hand onto my forearm. I was startled to feel how freezing cold his hand felt, which I mentioned to him. He frowned slightly and said, "Pat, it's these drugs they got me on. I can't do nothing about it." He looked back at the t.v. inquiring as to the Cubs' record, thereby deftly changing the topic away from his own mortality and toward something easier to comprehend.
Four years ago, my grandma became very ill as a result of a variety of medical complications, not least of which was Alzheimer's, the cruelest of all diseases. Her deterioration took a major toll on him. He was scared of leaving her alone or going to sleep without his hearing aids on, lest she wander off or need his help. Long after justifiability, he refused to place her in a nursing home. So, when one day she complained more than usual that she wasn't feeling well, he took her to the hospital one last time. I moved into her hospital room with him to look after him looking after her, so that we could take turns going out to do errands and monitoring her decline over three long weeks in the intensive care unit. It was the most trying time of my life -- not so much watching her die, because she was a sick lady for most of her life (she beat cancer at 76), and everyone was aware that the end was impending. The thing that got to me was the outpouring of unconditional love that resulted from his watching her fade away, his constant companion for 66 years, the ready fountain of support that allowed him to go out and build his empire.
I'll never forget the day before she died -- it was the second anniversary of 9/11, and when I walked into the room to find that her situation had suddenly passed the point of no return, he looked up at me and said, "This is it. We'll always remember this day." I walked to the window and looked out at the Hancock and Sears Tower some 15 miles off in the distance, and I began to sob uncontrollably. I never remembered him being sad in his whole life, but even he couldn't help himself from sobbing at the funeral. I partly take the blame for this; I broke into sobs during her eulogy, and I wanted to be strong for him. But there was nothing I could do about it; I kept looking at his state of despair, and my sadness got the best of me.
Time and again, Grandpa taught me that practical men of character deal with realities head-on. So, I wonder what I will say when I am called on to give his eulogy, as I have done for each of my other two deceased grandparents. I am uncertain as to whether I will have the strength or ability to capture his spirit and essence without making a sobbing mess of myself. Because grandpa would not want me to react that way -- not me, his mini-me, his pet project, his buddy. He is my hero and always will be, and I keep reminding myself that he is not dead yet, that I still have time to learn from him, and that as long as I live, so will something of him, the most admirable man I've ever known, my hero.
posted by Pat at 10:16 PM
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