My grandfather, Paul E. Hartofil, died last year at the of one hundred. I learned a lot from him because he was available for as long as I can remember to answer questions and occasionally correct me (gruffly if necessary) if he thought I was making mistakes. Grandparents are uniquely suited to this without stepping on toes…or at least my Grandpa was.
I loved listening to Grandpa’s war stories from being in a bomber in WWII during the Normandy invasion when he operated the radio. I also appreciated the tough times he and millions of others experienced before the war during the Great Depression. Standing on bread lines as a young man in the 1930s helped shape him into a person who saved his money and was very generous with his family and his faith community.
He had books from the 1950s that explained scientific principles in a very readable format, like the book Relativity for the Million by Martin Gardener who was the editor of Scientific American, which of course Grandpa subscribed to. He also had a bunch of old National Geographics and Omni magazines along with plenty of science fiction anthologies.
Oh, and did I mention that Grandpa was also part of the Apollo mission and designed the telemetry equipment that broadcast astronaut’s vital signs back to Earth? The importance of vital signs such as heart rate was dramatized well in the film Apollo 13. Grandpa had some interesting stories in which he did some classified things for the military, working in Iran before the Islamic Revolution of 1979, the details of which he never quite revealed. So, in short, he was a pretty smart and experienced dude.
Somewhere around the early 1980s Grandpa retired, but rather than sit around he got right to work writing computer programs in his upstairs workspace. He would stay there for hours typing and coding. He was still learning well into his 90s and at his later stage even though those last few years were tough on him (he suffered from dementia) I’m sure he must have watched some kind of informative television show or continued learning in some way. It was just who he was.
Today I try to be like Grandpa and teach my students to find a role model like the one I had. I try to be someone in their life who really wants them to succeed, who is always pointing out ways for them to improve. Teaching literature and writing leads to life lessons that they will carry with them the rest of their lives and also invigorate their writing with compelling ideas and big concepts.
Christian M. McFarland
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