Essential Values of My Grandparents

I have three sets of grandparents. The first one is my real father‘s parents, grandma Hendrick and her deceased MIA husband, Richard M Hendrix, which marriage I know nothing about. There wasn’t much of a family cultured beer. Then there’s the grandparents on my godfather side. My grandpa was a hardline traditional Democrat, who believed that the Democratic Party was the party other people.. he grew up in southeast Oklahoma, where he learned the values of discipline and hard work to almost militaristic detail.. my grandma grew up in an upstate New York community and moved to Oklahoma to go to school with a brother when she met grandpa and they married in 1949 and daddy was born on May 21, 1950 in Bartlesville, Oklahoma.. they had three other children, a daughter, and two other sons.. they moved to Midland Odessa in the mid to late 1950s because of oil. Both believed in strict traditional values, and it felt like often a militaristic style household.. the family seems so German stoic without much show of emotion or affection. The grandparents I felt closest to where my maternal grandparents Billy Joe and Betty Florence Sawyer. Granddad’s saw your grew up in the cities of East Texas moving offering from house to house having to deal with a bipolar abusive mother who my grandmother believed caused him to turn to the bottle that being said granddad was a good man.. grandma grew up in the backwoods at East Texas her father being a farmer. She was very mischievous being the baby of the family from elementary school all the way through high school with some serious pranks, but as I know her, she was a sweet grandma who could be tough if she had to be and believe me the way life conditioned her she had to be tough! They married in 1949 and a few months later in 1950 moved to the premium basin because of oil. An uncle was the oldest child followed by my mother born May 31, 1953 in Odessa, Texas.. My father was born in Spokane, Washington on June 10, 1951 sometime after Richard M Hendrick, my grandfather who had enlisted in the Air Force was called to Korea and believe to have gone MIA. Poor grandma had a string of marriages and that she did the best she could, but by the time that I knew her, she was a sweet grandma who taught me the art politics and she was a stun Republican just like my granddad Sawyer.. Now grandma saw your distrusted politics of any kind and she would shrink at even the discussion politics at the dinner table. “ All politicians are crooked James Anthony you need to know that!” Grandma told me stories about judges who were supposedly womanizers, but I was mesmerized, and John drawn into the political world By whom? By my granddad Sawyer when I was 11 years old, my mother was concerned about how the school district was treating my situation and granddad said he knew a few lawyers and politicians and that at the tender age of 11 beginning of third grade I begin to check out books about the presidency United States Supreme Court a political debonair interest was on! At age 13 after working for years for variety of companies with it being a recession in the country, he started a front end and alignment shop in Midland Texas and he wanted my uncle to run it whenever he retired but he refused. I told green bed I wanted to be a businessman someday and he gave me this advice.. “ boy got a law school, big good lawyer, and be your own man.” Often on weekends, I would come to the shop and learn valuable lessons from him such as buying from your own business. “ Always use the tools from your business and buy into the product and service from your business because when you own on the bucks, stop here boy..” But it always wasn’t what granddad said to me in that shop. It was what he did. He would talk to customers, assess the problem and immediately went to work without any. Thanks or anything like that he just did his job unceremoniously and behind the scenes.. Granddad retired in October 1988 when I was at 18 years old and a sophomore at premium high school and on the swim team there. He died on December 20, 1989 when I was a junior in high school and his legacy and memory stays on in me. . My brother had a younger uncle who was born a week younger than I was, and we were the same chronological age uncle Andy helped me see how good and important. The values I was learning from my grandparents would be. We are still close to this day.. After granddad‘s death, I learned a lot from my grandmothers grandma Hendrick taught me the value of citizenship in the lobby in Congress, but grandma taught me the values of cleanliness, privacy, and peace with no drama. I would be remiss Howard to go back to four Christmases before granddad died. I was 15 years old and in the seventh grade and of all the presents I got that year. My grandmother handed me mine and I opened it. It was a library card for the Midland County library in Midland, Texas along with a book about John F Kennedy. Tears came from my eyes as my grandparents on Mama side knew exactly what I wanted.. “ You always like to learn James so I decide to help you your granddad and I walked together on this.” When I entered college, the second semester of my first freshman year, I took a job in a while because of the culture of the place. I hated it and wanted to quit.. grandma Sawyer demanded absolutely not that I was to stick with that job to the very end regardless of whether I got acknowledged or not. I was acknowledged many times in the early days but after a while, the job became something just to fill up time when I was in college. In December 1994 in my junior urine college, I found out that grandma Sawyer was dying, and I was very angry very angry at my parents very angry at God and very angry at the world. Incomplete rebellion I took in a roommate that my parents thought was a bad idea. I rebuilt against God, my classwork suffered, and I suffered financially.. I came home at the end of my senior year feeling like a shelf of a person but my grandmother among my friends back home, put me back together put me back in church and back right with God! The time it come from my first senior year at Texas Tech, and I told my mother, my grandmother that I would forgo that to return to school at home to look after my grandma, but she refused rightfully so. “ you keep your chin up son and don’t you forget don’t be poking around. Life is too short. “ She died on November 18, 1995 and what is ironic is that her death brought me closer to God. The only known grandparent I had in my life with grandma Hendrick and I didn’t see or talk to her much until my father and I reconciled in January 2000 grandma would talk to me about how Americans and the American Indians were in extremely linked in history. Even though dad protested, she taught me about my Indian heritage and impressed on me to work on my geology.. she died in April 2015.. My grandparents on my godfather side was the last to go. Grandpa was overwhelmed by the new cultural norms of LGBTQ something which anger him though he in his mind did not know the ramifications he died on October 31, 2017 and grandma remains strong but she died in January 2021. However, of the two grandparents that influenced me, the most grandma and granddad Sawyer taught me the values of cleanliness or orderliness, godliness and traditional political values that carry my day. Because of them I went to Texas Tech University, and got my bachelors degree in political science, and I am forever grateful. The values of my maternal grandparents I will carry them with pride.