I spent my childhood summers with my Grandfather, whom we all called “Gramps” out of respect, affection, and because when we called him “Taterhead” he never responded.

During those summers he instructed me in the ways of the outdoors. I learned how to guide myself by the stars. Because of his wise counsel, I’ve had no desire to date Capricorns. Gramps was truly the epitome of the great American Outdoorsman. His knowledge of the woods, and the delightful creatures to be found there, had been passed down from his father, his father’s father, his father’s father’s father, and his father’s father’s father’s gay lover Arnaud.

Gramps loved all critters but he had a particular fondness for dogs. I remember him having three dogs, all of them named Nigel. It got downright confusing sometimes, especially since Gramps thought he had only one dog and constantly wondered why it looked different every time he called it. And they all could do tricks, better than city dogs. The littlest Nigel was famous for rolling over like you wouldn’t believe. Of course he didn’t have any legs and Gramps lived on a big hill, but a trick’s a trick in my book.

One time Gramps woke me up—or at least that is the effect his tossing a lit match onto my bed had—just to brag about Nigel’s latest trick. “Lookee there,” Gramps said after I emerged screaming and smoking from my bedroom, “Look at Ole Nigel a-playin’ dead. Been pullin’ that stunt since I awoke, nigh two hours ago.”

I looked to where Gramps was pointing and sure enough there was Nigel playing dead. We watched her (this one was a She-Nigel) for the rest of that day. She was good at it. We were all so proud. She didn’t move a muscle, even if you shouted her name or poked her with a stick. After a couple of days we tired of her antics, and as she was beginning to stink a bit, Gramps decided to give her to Charley, the simple neighbor boy who had always pined for a dog of his own. Charley squealed with excitement when he learned he could have Nigel and thanked us to high heaven but I seemed to see something akin to an intellectual awakening upon his face when he learned, after much whistling and handclapping, that he would have to drag Ole Nigel home. The famous feud between our families began in earnest the next morning.

Now Gramps had what you’d call a bright life. He participated in World War I. They said he killed a lot of soldiers. The kitchen in which he shaved potatoes blew up and he was the one they discharged. They claimed to have found raters stuffed into the gasline and seemed to think Gramps’s legendary orneriness was to blame. But you couldn’t deny soldiering was in his blood. He was descended from men such as Colonel William Claude Lamott, who is known in military history as the only Confederate soldier to have ridden side-saddle; and Gruffy Douglas, the legendary Spanish War mule-handler; and Frenchy Calhoun, who claimed to be Napoleon’s long-lost twin brother.

Almost every day I realize that there is something else that I learned from Gramps. The knowledge he bestowed to me is far-reaching and ranges from a practical household tip (“to get rid of a stubborn stain, simply snip the sucker out with scissors”) to a lofty philosophical proclamation (“if you so much as look at my moonshine one more time I’ll pour hot tar down your shorts”).

Sprightly is probably the first word you would use to describe Gramps. Even at the age of eighty-eight Gramps had the heart of a young boy. He kept it in a mayonnaise jar under the sink.

There are still many memories of Gramps that I can easily recall, but there is one in particular that I’d like to share. It was one of the last times that I saw him, a mere few minutes before the bizarre whittling accident that took his life (and landed me in the state pen). He came up to me and said, “Boy, you remember that time I called you a ‘no-good, yeller-belly, finger-pullin’, god forsaken, Injun-givin’, ungrateful, unwashed, Yankee-lovin’ moron?’ ”

“Yes, sir,” I replied.

“Good,” he said.