My Grandpa

      My grandpa was one of the nicest men I ever knew. His name was Russell Moss. He died in 1960 when he was sixty five years old. I was six years old when he passed away. I loved him as much as any person I’ve ever known. He had a hard life and was orphaned at nine years old. He lived in Newton, Iowa.

      Since he lived in Iowa, I didn’t get to see him very often. He would come down to Texas once a year for a couple of weeks and we would go up to Iowa in the summer for a couple of weeks. Other than that, I didn’t get to see him. I didn’t think about it at the time but whenever I was around him, he treated me like a king. One time he said, “Doug, if you tell me, you love me, I’ll buy you a box of Cracker Jacks.”

      Cracker Jacks were my weakness. I said, “Of course I love you grandpa.”

      Later that day he went out and came back with a case of Cracker Jack boxes. There must’ve been fifteen or twenty boxes of Cracker Jacks.

       I guess as a kid I took him for granted. When he came to San Antonio, he would come in my room early in the morning when everyone was asleep and wake me up. He would drive us out Goliad Road and stop at a place which was usually a bar. In the morning, they cooked breakfast and made coffee. We sat at the bar with the guys who had hangovers and were still trying to sober up. He bought me scrambled eggs and coffee. With cream and sugar of course. My parents would never let me have coffee so it was magnificent. They said it stunted my growth. He would strike up conversations with other guys sitting at the bar. He could talk to anyone. It was amazing to me. I would listen to them and be enthralled by all the different stories everyone talked about. One time I heard my grandpa talking about serving in World War1 to another guy. I couldn’t hear all of it, but it intrigued me.

      Later I asked him about serving in the war. He said he was with the Rainbow division. This division was famous in World War 1, it was the 42nd infantry. He fought in the battle of the Marne and the Argonne forest. Apparently the Argonne Forest was a crazy battle for the Americans. There were a lot casualties. He was wounded and gassed. He was with the signal corp. Those guys had to stand high up on a tower to signal the frontline soldiers’ current information with flags. Naturally they were the first ones the Germans tried to take out.

       One early evening he was on the tower signaling and he was wounded. He climbed down off the tower and the Germans gassed the area. Since he was wounded it took him a few seconds to get his mask on and inhaled some of the gas. Apparently, the gas damaged his lungs. He recovered from his wounds and the gas.

      He survived the war and came home to Newton. He worked as a police officer and a firefighter. I’m sure he had some kind of shell shock as they called it back then. Now it’s PTSD. He managed to live and work in a small town and raise a family which included my dad.

      Having lung issues of my own I can’t help but wonder if the gas in his lungs stuck with him for the rest of his life and was probably a cause in his death at what I consider an early age. I will never forget him.