It was 44 years ago, this time of year, when Granddaddy and Mamaw paid me an unexpected visit, traveling from Meridian to Denver.
Granddaddy was 81, walked carefully with a cane, and he had failing eyesight. My grandmother, 11 years younger than the retired hardware store manager, was a devoted companion in this venture, but it was clear that this trip was Granddaddy’s idea.
He was determined to check on me, in person.
I was a long way from family in Mississippi or Southern California, short of cash, working odd jobs while trying to jumpstart a journalism career. Upon graduating from San Diego State several months earlier, I expected to land a job quickly after a flurry of applications to newspapers big and small.
When that didn’t happen, I decided “I’ll just do it another way,” packed clothes and a stout manual typewriter into my Honda Civic and hit the road for Denver, figuring I’d show up and talk my way into something at the Denver Post. But they too were slow to embrace a freshly minted journalism school graduate.
I was in transition, as they say, working first as a Pizza Hut cook, then as graveyard shift counselor at a home for troubled boys, freelance writing where I could. There was no money for travel to spend a traditional Christmas with family amid lots of food and affection. My grandparents knew this.
“You want to come to Denver? Soon? Why?” was my response when Granddaddy and Mamaw reached out, said they would be flying in.
“We just want to come see you, bring a few things,” they answered.
I was mildly irritated, in all honesty, at the idea of playing host out west to elderly grandparents who now tended to stay close to home.
But on they came. I got them a room at a modest hotel near my little basement apartment on Colfax Avenue, a mile east of downtown.
They stayed a couple of nights. We didn’t do much except talk about my new and uncertain life, and the goings-on with family in Meridian and elsewhere. They had brought a few gifts for me to open, including a favorite holiday gimmick for grandchildren, a big potato sliced open in one spot to allow for hiding a silver dollar or two. They loved to wow us with silver dollars. We laughed and told stories and mostly avoided the frigid Colorado air outside.
Our single outing was a drive west, into the towering Rockies, on Interstate 70. Even though his vision was hazy, and there would be no trail walking, Granddaddy insisted on a symbolic brief visit to the mountains that attracted me (and my father, who hunted mule deer in Colorado). Then it was back to Denver, to the airport. We embraced again and they flew home to Meridian.
My grandfather, a vaudeville performer as a young man, was often light-hearted and entertaining. One ditty he wrote said, “Everybody works but Granddaddy, he sits around all day, eating up all the groceries, smoking cigars or at play.”
But Granddaddy could be serious too. He faced hard times growing up near Montgomery (his father died when Granddaddy was 3, and he helped provide for his siblings and mother), and traveling the Mississippi Delta as a young hardware salesman. And he was quietly determined when making sure his grandchildren were OK.
When they came to Denver, Granddaddy knew he was running out of time. Six months later, he passed away. I regret that I did not fully appreciate that visit in late 1979, but I do now. It was a grand holiday-spirit gesture.
Note: George and Louise Warner spent many years in Cleveland, where they raised three children and George managed Delta Hardware. They relocated to Meridian in retirement to be close to relatives.
Coleman Warner is a historian and writer for The Mississippi Arts and Entertainment Experience, former newspaper reporter and editor