Mike

My Irish grandfather on my mother's side was a great influence on me.  He was about five and a half feet tall, very boisterous and strong with a thick shock of white hair.  He saved me when I left university in 1980 and moved to New York.  He lived with my grandmother on Fieldston Road in the Riverdale section of the Bronx.  

He had a little religious card shop on Mosholu Avenue across from Van Cortlandt Park where he sold Christmas cards and religious trinkets to catholic schools across the country as fundraisers and donated any profits he made to religious orders in Africa, Asia and South America.   I lived above the card shop when my grandmother could no longer abide me staying at the house.  It was a small three bedroom apartment with a kitchen and living room and a small garden in the back.  My grandfather most of the time slept downstairs on the sofa in his office. 

 I would walk, if the weather was nice and had the time, or if not, I'd take the bus to the 242nd street subway station and ride the number one red line to downtown Manhattan. One day I was riding the train and I can't remember how I got into conversation with a little old lady about my grandfather.   She went on a bit of a rant about what an absolute saint he was to devote his life to the church and charity work.    I was happy to hear it but it also made me a bit uncomfortable.  I am not exactly sure why.  Maybe it was the attention.  At the time all I could think about was how much my Irish grandmother would disagree with the characterization of her husband as a saint.    In reminiscing about it it strikes me how many of us are both saints and sinners — depending upon whom you talk to.