He and I bonded over the Rangers.
One memory stands out above them all.
It’s not going to Port Charlotte for spring training, splitting time between the ballpark and Palm Island resort.
It’s not Grandpa using his influence to land me the best job on the planet for a 16-year old kid, bat boy in a big league clubhouse.
It’s not seeing him run around with beer and champagne like a 20-year old rookie when the Rangers won their first division championship in club history.
And it’s not when I was working for ESPN Radio, trying to be a serious sports journalist and do interviews in the clubhouse. It was hard to do that when Grandpa wanted to walk me around and introduce me to ballplayers. "This is my grandson. He's a reporter! Do you want to ask him something, Chris?"
My favorite day at the ballpark was in June of 2005.
I was living in Monroe, Louisiana, and had fallen hard for this girl. I brought Cassie home to Arlington to meet Dad and Diane, and also to go to a ballgame with Grandpa.
Like he did with a lot of my friends when I brought them into town, he wanted to give a behind-the-scenes tour of the ballpark. So we went off to do that before first pitch.
He could tell I was in love, and he wanted to make this tour extra special. We must have seen every square inch of the stadium, and been introduced to nearly every employee. We saw the locker rooms, batting cages… of course the training room and his plaque… the press box, scoreboard, public address, all of the restaurants... EVERYTHING!
By the time we got back to our seats, it was the SEVENTH INNING!
So for Cassie's first game, she saw about two and a half innings of baseball.
Fast forward to December 2010. Cassie and I were living in Baton Rouge. I had gone back to school, and just finished my degree. Cassie was in a job she HATED.
So we decided to leave, and move back to Arlington, on a hope and a prayer that we'd find something around here.
Phil and Diane were set to take us in, but then my dad calls me and says he heard Grandpa wanted us to move in with him.
So I called Grandpa up, and told him I had heard about that and would love to stay at his place. That sounded great.
There was a pause for a few seconds, then I heard, "Chris, I'm sorry about this… but I was kidding."
I think Dad and Aunt Suz twisted his arm a bit, telling him it may be a good thing to have some company and some help. So later that night he called back and apologized, and asked us to move in with him.
We were penniless. He gave us shelter, bought all of our food. So incredibly generous. Never said a word about it, until I finally got my first paycheck, when he made a crack about me finally paying for some groceries.
And we got to spend so much time together. Sharing meals, watching ballgames, and taking him to serve at Mission Arlington.
Cassie never met Grandma, but got to know her by living there. Grandpa talked about her all the time, showed Cassie so many pictures, and told her about the different aspects of the house that Grandma designed.
We ended up staying there for six months. I wish it could have been longer. But the commute back and forth to my job in Frisco was getting really difficult, plus Cassie and I knew we wanted to start a family soon. Living upstairs at Grandpa's may not have been the easiest set-up for a baby.
I was watching Senator John McCain’s funeral earlier this month, listening to President George W. Bush's eulogy. When I heard this, I thought it applied perfectly to Grandpa as well.
“Some lives are so vivid; it is difficult to imagine them ended. Some voices are so vibrant; it is hard to think of them stilled."
Today, Grandpa's basking in the glory of our Lord and Savior.
As much as he loved to tell stories here, he eventually ran out of them, and we starting hearing repeats.
Now that he's spending eternity with Jesus Christ, I can only imagine the amazing new stories he'll have to tell when his fellow believers join him there.
