The Mayor Turns 85

Yesterday was the 85th birthday of a man we all call the Mayor. He is my stepdad's father, and probably the biggest character in a family full of characters.

The Mayor farmed all his working life, except those years he spent in the Pacific fighting the Japanese. He was on the U.S.S. Franklin when it got the shit kicked out of it by a kamakaze plane that flew right into the ship's ammunition's deck, setting off explosion after explosion. In one day he lost almost all of his friends and ended up scooping their ashes up in a tin can and dumping them off the side of the ship into the sea. Then he came home and kept farming outside my hometown, L.C., and raised a bunch of kids and cracked the whip over them like a madman.

In the 80's and 90's he dominated the local political scene by running for mayor and, on the strength of the powerful old people vote, succeeding every election no matter what. Hence the name The Mayor, and to this day almost no one calls him by his real name except his wife. He has certain, ah, views, which include hating the Japs, hating the 'queers', and an overwhelming concern for railroad safety, which I believe was spurred by a local man losing his life at an unmarked crossing, during a blizzard, when he was trying to plow the road that ran across the tracks. I was there when he cut the ribbon for the new railroad lights, shouting about how it was too late for some people, but better late than never. Also, more than once he's had words with people on the city council, and just a few years ago one meeting devolved into a shouting and shaking match with a man also in his late seventies, probably over local lawn mowing practices or something.

The Mayor has always liked to shout, and say insane things, but lately he's mellowed way down. I knew he was getting soft(ish) when he started visiting my mother every Sunday afternoon with his wife, Beth. I think they both knew, with old people wisdom, that she was going to die before they were, and for the last few years of my mom's life they visited her like clockwork. The Mayor was surprisingly sedate and gentle during these visits, and when he wasn't reading our mail he was telling my mother how much he hoped she'd get better, and soon.

Now the Mayor speaks softly because he has to, and doesn't remember the names of his grandchildren, and sits at parties sunk into a couch, this aging fighter who once dominated a room, and he smiles when other people laugh.

Someone should call Tom Brokaw about this guy.