On the surface it doesn’t seem fair.
I was a teenager about to go in the Navy. My grandfather was in his 70s. But we would playfully wrestle on occasion. Grandfather Galen was not a tall man. He was stocky and had enormous biceps.
We would never get down on the ground. It was more a contest to see who could throw the other off balance. He always won.
Galen was athletic and in shape into old age. He played football under the coaching of the famed Alonzo Stagg at the University of Chicago. And he was a scholar as well, finishing first in his law school class. In many ways, Grandpa Galen was a second father to me because he and my grandmother lived with my mother, father and brother in the house my grandfather had built when he was a young lawyer.
Many evenings, my brother and I, as youngsters, would retreat to our grandparents’ part of the house and beg my grandfather to tell of stories of his adventures in the old west or his other exciting tales.
One of our favorites occurred in St. Louis. At that time he was courting my grandmother-to-be — beautiful Daisy. Galen was walking along the street when he heard Daisy cry out from a passing streetcar, calling his name. He raced ahead to the next stop, boarded the street car, and took a seat beside Daisy.
She explained that the two men sitting in the seat behind her had insulted her and suggested she depart with them. At the next stop, the two men arose to leave the streetcar. One of the men swiped his hand across Galen’s face and said in a mocking voice, “Galen.”
Galen sprang from his seat and gave the man a jaw-breaker punch. That man’s accomplice leaped on Galen’s back. Galen dragged him to the front of the streetcar, telling the conductor to open the door.
When the conductor refused, Galen threw the man through the door of the streetcar onto the street.
Later, Galen learned that the man he had thrown off the streetcar was the son of the owner of the streetcar company.
Soon after the fight, Galen was walking down the same street. A man with his jaw bandaged crossed quickly to the other side of the street, avoiding Galen’s glance.
Another story, we loved to hear was during an earlier time when Galen and his father were in Texas. It was during the period of the historic Cherokee Run of 1893, when public land was made available to anyone who could stake a lot.
Galen and his father staked two lots. But almost immediately “a big, burly gambler,” as Galen described him in his book, Western Pioneering, set up a tent. He falsely claimed Galen’s lot. Galen’s father, James, had staked the lot behind Galen’s.
“I went to the gambler,” Galen wrote, “and proposed that if he would retire from my lot, my father would give his lot to the gambler. The big, burly brute replied, ‘No, I’ll stay where I am, and my woman will take the other lot.’
‘All right,’ my father and I responded. ‘You won’t get either lot.’
“The stage was set for real trouble. Just then, lumber arrived for a shack. “We took some stakes from wagon and threw them down on my lot. The plan of battle was simple. I would engage and swarm over the enemy to prevent his drawing and use of his gun or knife. My father close behind would follow and deal the deciding cranial blow with a stake or spade.
“A crowd gathered; I grasped the front end of a long board. My father took the other end. The gambler emerged from his tent, cursing loudly. He planted his big bulk belligerently in our path.
“Instead of throwing down the board, I on one end and my father on the other, lunged with it at the enemy’s shins. He jumped aside. But wishing close quarters action, I rushed in and to throw the enemy off balance, struck his big belly with a forceful elbow and shoulder. This brought an enraged grunt.
“But instead of reacting as expected by resort to weapons, he reached down to pick up the board. He placed his right hand under the board. In a flash, I saw my chance. I jumped with my full weight, mashing the enemy’s gun or knife hand between the board and the hard earth. The enemy leaped up with a cry of pain.
“I bristled up, crowding close, ready to leap and bind his arms. My father was close behind with lethal stake or spade. The enemy slowly backed up.
“’Now get out of here,’ I rasped, ‘or you really will get hurt.’”
The big enemy slowly retreated to his tent, nursing his right gun hand, packed up and left.”
Looking back on those early days of my own youth, I now realize what a fool I was to try to wrestle my grandfather.
Tait Trussell is an old guy and fourth-generation professional journalist who writes extensively about aging issues among a myriad of diverse topics.