It's just like those bloody peasants

I attended the funeral of my beloved step-grandfather, the only "grandfather" in my life who acted the part. Both my "real" grandfathers had died long before I was born, and both my grandmothers had remarried. My father's mother married a bitter man whose soul was completely cheerless. My mother's mother had married again twice, first to a friend of her first husband who was a greedy, thieving bastard, and then to Earl, who was The Last Real Gentleman.

Everyone loved Earl. The whole community, most of whom are related to me, embraced him, an outsider, as one of their own, adopting him as their own grandfather, uncle, or brother. I have had occasion to wonder if this did not perhaps perturb my grandmother a bit, a woman who was not well-liked even by her own children.

It was a lovely service. The rain stopped just enough for us to return him to the earth. The sun had even blessed us a bit, encouraging us to smile through our loss. I felt reassured.

And then, I became a tourist back in my home county of Guernsey. I snapped pictures of our local library, a gift from Andrew Carnegie. I also took pictures of our courthouse, a triumph of architecture back in the late 1880s, placed not in the county seat but in the biggest town in the county. (The seat was moved to accommodate the courthouse location later, and the original seat dwindled away to just a village.)

Tucked into a parking lot, I found this sign, and thought you all will laugh as mightily as I did:



I hope this post finds you well and in good spirits. For those who embrace the possibility, there is a most excellent man watching over you, purest of heart and soul. Do much to deserve the honor. For me, it is enough to know that in life, my grandfather was well-respected and loved not because he demanded it but because he earned it.