My Grandpa and John McCain

I just finished watching the clips of Obama and McCain at the Al Smith dinner and I have a confession to make. I don't want to hate McCain. I don't really even want to dislike him. He's no Bush (either one), certainly no Cheney and although the manner in which he's been conducting himself recently makes it more difficult to not dislike him, there's some type of fail safe switch deep inside my psyche that resists. I think it I know what that is : John McCain reminds me of my grandfather. This is not meant as jab at his age; my grandfather died when he was just a few years older than McCain and I was twenty-four. I'm not envisioning some ancient and decrepit centenarian.

William Richard Brady was born on 05/16/1914, the first of a large, Irish family in the tenements of Chicago. Like many in his generation, he left school early (after sixth grade) and went directly to work. Throughout his life, he worked as a trolley-car conductor, a short-order cook, a security guard and a linen delivery man, and although he wasn't educated, he was a very intelligent man.


Grandpa was a die-hard Republican. I'm not sure this was always true, but certainly from the time that he learned his Teamster pension was stolen by Jimmy Hoffa, he was a staunch conservative. He was a grumpy old man, make no bones about it-but not nearly as grumpy as he deserved to be. He lived a tough, tough life; born into poverty and fighting to escape it his entire life. He was the eldest son of an Irish father and German mother-undoubtedly a scandalous union for the time. Growing up in depression-era Chicago he certainly felt the responsibility of his family's survival. Things were tough and, to paraphrase Sinclair Lewis, he "knew the raging lash of poverty'. Because his father fell ill relatively young with emphysema, (the disease that would ultimately cause the death of most of his children), and his mother with cancer, he became their sole support and thus avoided being drafted into WWII. No such luck for his brother Richard, the sibling closest in age to Grandpa who, from all accounts, was his best friend, co-hort and partner in crime. Uncle Richard went off to war and came back, like so many young men have and are, even now, an emotionally unrecognizable man. Soon after his return from the war, he disappeared and the only other time Grandpa had word of him was in the mid-1950's when the FBI knocked on his door and grilled him about Richard's whereabouts. Nobody ever really knew why the FBI was looking for Richard, but years after my Grandfather died his youngest brother hired a private investigator who ultimately learned only that Uncle Richard had died in Los Angeles in 1979 of emphysema.


That was but one of many losses; my grandmother nearly died as a result of negligent care after my mother's birth and she suffered a lifetime of pain and disability due to the subsequent emergency hysterectomy in her early twenties and its resulting early onset of osteoporosis. My grandfather seemed to bear these hardships in a surprisingly, for the times, healthy way. He was a man not afraid to cry and to grieve and he would then carry-on, making the best of the situation. My mother, being an only child, became the vessel of his hope for the future. Grandpa, defying the sentiments of the time regarding women's roles in the world, encouraged and empowered her to get an education and succeed in life. Which she did, despite their poverty, earning a BSN from Marquette University's sister school, Alverno College. To this day she credits her father with giving her the mindset and opportunity to reach beyond their circumstances.

Despite their poverty and blue-collar jobs my grandparents did well. A little saavy investing on my grandmother's part and hard work and frugality on my grandfather's enabled them to lift themselves solidly into the middle class-not only owning, but having built to spec their own modest brick bungalow by the time they were in their late forties.


My grandfather's history has little in common with John McCain's, this is true and I mention it only to illustrate a few of the many ways in which he lived an admirable life. The ways in which John McCain reminds me of my grandfather are more about their world-view. They both lived in a world of black and white:you were either good or bad, with them or against them and neither would hesitate to declare which category they felt that you fell into. Irascible, curmudgeonly and yes, irritating, they share many common attributes. At the same time they are funny and charming and when you've just about reached your last straw they always seem to play their last card-they reveal that glimmer of heroics and valor of their youth and their basic integrity and goodness. You just can't completely give up on them. At the same time, towards the end of their lives, they seemed to change, somehow betraying the principles on which they lived their entire life. My grandfather, by becoming incredibly whiny and clinging and disturbingly bigoted, shed the skin of responsibility and independence in which he lived his true life. And John McCain? Well, I think we are all witnessing now, in the way he is allowing his campaign to be conducted, the great betrayal of the moral base from which he has navigated the bulk of his time on earth. It is a sad, maybe even tragic scenario, this vision of great men taking leave of the moral compass that has guided them so far and for so long.


But, in the same way that they could not alter the lack of grey area in their worlds, I can neither let go of the images of the man of integrity.


When someone you love and are close to dies of a protracted and devastating illness, it is not long after their passing that your image of them ill and weak recedes into the background, taken over by your memories of their greatness, their good times and their strength.


This thing is this: those are memories and when all is said and done, that person, the one that you loved and admired, is gone.

So, I can't hate John McCain. But in a sense, it seems, he is already gone.