Strong Sense

His grandfather was a man who CONFRONTED EACH DAY as if it were a barn that needed raising—a man who MADE THE MOST of life and whose WISDOM LIVES ON in what he taught the author

- Dwight Garner

My grandfather, Dwight Archibald Garner, known to everyone as Archie, spent most of his early life working in the coal mines in and around Marion County, West Virginia. He quickly rose to become a foreman. Later he branched out and in his spare time became a successful Realtor. Archie had a big, bustling personality—he confronted each day as if it were a barn in need of raising. He was happier than most people. Maybe the fact that his own father had died young, in a car crash, gave him a sense that life is fleeting. He made the most of the best things in life and the least of the worst. Evelyn Waugh once wrote, “Instead of this absurd division into sexes they ought to class people as static and dynamic.” Archie was a dynamo. He wasn’t a sermonizer, but to be around him was to learn how to live. You picked up things. Some of the lessons he imparted were large and metaphysical, others minuscule and mundane.

But I’m surprised at how many have stuck with me, and how relevant to my life they remain. Here are a few.

Get to it: My grandfather worked early shifts at the mines. Later in life, he simply got up before anyone else. By the time another human was down for coffee, he’d been to town for breakfast and gossip, shoveled the walk, and worked two hours in his office. If he wanted to sit on the porch for a while in the afternoons, he’d earned it.