How Grandpa Joe became Grandpa Joe

Grandpa Joe was one of the few men I knew who taught their kids to call them by their first name. Every now and then I might hear my own Dad call him Pops, but almost always Dad called his dad Joe. So did the rest of Joe's kids. The only other guy I knew who did likewise was Joe's friend Ed, who had his kids call him Ed. I have no real idea why they wanted things that way, but they did.

With my older brother and I as Joe's two oldest grandkids, he set out to have us call him Joe. On a day when we were both barely toddlers and only just beginning to speak, he came by the house to encourage us to call him Joe.

Me Mom would have none of that. Where she came from, Mom was Mom and Dad was Dad and Grandpa was Grandpa and so on, and that's all there was to it. She told Grandpa that the first one of use who called him Joe would be punished. He was a grandfather and he would be grandpa. Joe figured she didn't mean it and went to call her bluff. But Mom meant it; God bless them, they were both pretty stubborn.

Eventually one of us called him Joe and got punished. Joe was horrified; he didn't want to see a kid punished over some such as that. So in the true spirit of ending partisan activities a compromised was reached, a pact likely brokered by me Pops. Joe would be Grandpa Joe. Each side uneasily accepted the terms of the truce. Grandpa Joe was henceforth Grandpa Joe.

As an adult, though, working with him, I did at times call him Joe. But that never got back to Mom.