Who was the ONE person that made a difference in your life? Someone that altered the course of your life by caring, or giving their time? That is the question that I will ask across America on the 2010 50 States in 50 Days tour. I will seek “orange duffel bag” stories, if you will.
Mine was my grandad, Orvellee Upton from Lampasas, Texas. He was actually my step-grandad. My dad’s father passed away in 1963, so I never knew him.
Grandad was a cowboy, a rancher, a bus driver, a roadworks foreman, a foreman for the State of Texas…..working with work-release prisoners on housing for the elderly……..he was a hard worker……..I saw him mainly as a cowboy. He always wore a cowboy hat, and when we walked into church on sunday morning…….he would take his hat off and lay it upside down on the hatrack in the lobby…….right alongside the other cowboy hats.
Each summer I would spend a couple of months down in Texas with my grandad and my sweet grandmother, Mimi. I have wonderful memories of those times….fishing for perch, and then going out on Belton Lake to set trotlines to catch HUGE catfish, buying watermelons from the stands on the side of the road after church on sunday. Wonderful memories. Those days shaped my life.
His quiet influence has given me a guide by which I can raise my son now. I hear their voices daily, and try to emulate their example. He cared. He gave me his time. I needed that.
I guess the best way to explain what he meant is to show you the eulogy that I delivered at his funeral in 2003. I wrote it on the plane from Nashville to Dallas………top to bottom……with no editing. It flowed.
(opening comments)
My name is Kevin Montgomery. I speak on behalf of myself and my sister’s, Echo and Dee Dee.
GRANDAD WAS A TEACHER
One of my first memories of Grandad was going hunting with him and sitting in an old rusted out tractor for hours……him telling me to sit very still and we might see a buck…..we’ll we did and he shot it……….he was teaching me patience.
Grandad was a simple man…..not in his thoughts, but by the moral clarity by which he lived his life. As a boy I knew that when I went to him with questions that he would give me an answer that I could apply to my life and it would never lead me down a wrong road. Most times he would give me big answers to small questions….he would say,”son, just be a good man.”———this allowed me to process what “being a good man meant”.
I believe to Grandad that this represented simple things:
1)Love God.
2)Love your wife.
3)Be kind.
4)Be gentle.
5)Treat your neighbor how you would like to be
treated.
6)Love your family.
7)Be calm.
8)Work hard.
Grandad was a hard worker…..his hands were rock hard and narled from years of labor. He did what had to be done.
I remember when i was about 12 years old. Grandad was about 67 years old and working as a foreman for a State of Texas construction crew…..he was 67 years old and working a very physical job……knowing him he was probably doing most of the work his self.
At this time I was baseball crazy and he would come in from work and i’d be waiting for him with glove and ball in my hand…..that summer i put 220 miles on my bicycle……most of them from going around in circles in front of the house waiting for him to come home. Well, i’d meet him at the front door with gloves and ball in hand…..and then proceed to burn his hand out for the next hour or so…………………he NEVER turned me down………………even after working all day long……he would still do this for me. He was tired as can be from working all day, but still would come outside and play……………..he was teaching me to be unselfish.
You know…..these days i have young nephews with lofty aspirations for sports…..and invariably after a big meal they will ask me to go outside and throw football and play with them…..and to tell the truth…..sometimes i’d rather not, especially right after a big meal………but I go now………………..Grandad is STILL teaching me.
I remember sitting in church with Mimi and Grandad and getting restless……Grandad would hand me a stick of Wrigley’s Spearmint gum……….now everytime I taste Wrigley’s Spearmint gum i’m taken back to that place in my life and I think of Grandad……no matter where in the world I am.
Grandad had a sense of humor……he was quick to laugh and I remember how his face would squinch up and go red with laughter if someone told a good joke at the dinner table.
He was a prankster……….I remember when I was a teenager he grabbed an electric fence with one hand and then exhorted me to shake his other hand…………his eyes going read from the electricity, but he held on…..unitl I, convinced there was no way it could be on, grabbed his hand…….to shocking results.
Grandad was tough…….I used to love it when he told how he was dragged by a team of horses, but survived even after being knocked out for a day or so. He got a scar on his nose from a bobcat swiping it after his dogs cornered it and he went in to drag the dogs away.
One of the things I loved about my grandad was the gentleness he showed my grandmother……she was an excellent cook, and Grandad enjoyed the catfish dinners thath she would cook……but he did the dishes every time afterwards.
Grandad was a gentle man………
My sister Echo and I were talking yesterday at the funeral home about how we felt about Grandad……and her thoughts Echoed mine (attempt at humor that failed!)
Seriously, she was talking about what a gentle man Grandad was and how he would always pick the weakest, puniest calf out at the auction and then take it home and take care of it until he turned its’ situation around. He seemed to root for the underdog and genuinely grieved when he lost an animal.
After work, many times Grandad would take an afternoon nap….as a child I remember taking naps with him…..he never snored, but would make ppphhhh noises……I liked to hold his nose so he couldn’t breath…..but he never awoke angry.
Last year at the end of one of my visits with him in the nursing home I was able to tell him exactly how I felt about him. I leaned down and held him and told him that I didn’t know where I would be now if it hadn’t been for him…………
When I was a little boy I can remember trying to walk exactly in his footsteps…..not figuratively, but literally. I would follow behind him and try to step in his steps……through the yard……to the garden…..to the truck……….
I asked him if he knew…….and he said, “Yes, I knew”.
He, at the time, couldn’t speak very well, but he then said, “Our story is the story of a man and a boy”…………..
What makes this story such a testament to the character of this man is that he didn’t HAVE to love me. I was not his blood. I was his step-grandson……………….but from the minute he met all of us……he was our REAL grandad………….
He was teaching me unconditional love……
I will tell my children of Grandad, and will try to take the quiet lessons he taught me and apply them throughout the rest of my life.
When Mimi died a few months ago….something Alan said in the eulogy cut me to the core.
He said that Mimi intimated to him that she wondered if her life had made a difference……..
Well, the answer is YES.
Yes, both Mimi and Grandad’s lives made ALL the difference…………they touched all of our lives and they will never be forgotten.
Today we are gathered here to pay tribute to Grandad and to say goodbye to him……let it be a celebration of a wonderful life.
Over the past year or so….as I contiplated Grandad’s passing…….some song lyric’s kept coming into my thoughts. It’s a Vince Gill song……..let me close by reciting a lyric from the song……….
“Go Rest high on that mountain,
’cause your work on earth is done,
Go to heaven a shoutin’
love for the Father and the Son.”
Who was your one? Who gave you the time? Who altered the course of your life? Did you age out of foster care? What is your “Orange Duffel Bag” story? Please comment below, or get in touch. I’d love to interview you on the 2010 50 States in 50 Days tour.
Please get involved by joining the “I support Kevin Montgomery’s 50 States in 50 Days tour” Facebook group. Also, let me know if you want to host a house concert in your State? We have a clear mission, and a wonderful partner in the Orange Duffel Bag Foundation-helping teens aging out of foster care, and homeless teens. Get involved!
{ 13 comments… read them below or add one }
I love the story of your Grandfather (and Grandmother).
Thank you!
Great stuff! I think you showed that to me a long time ago.
Yes, I probably showed it to you at the time……..he was a great man. Thanks for commenting.
I'd ghosted through five years of High School. It was a huge school (2500 kids at one point) and keeping your head down wasn't hard. I'd never had to to try too hard to pass exams but never got great grades.
In my fifth year I wrote a parody, with a couple of friends, of my English teacher's favourite poem (Hawk Roosting by Ted Hughes – we called it Hawk Roasting so fill in the blanks. At the end of class I was stupid enough to show it to her. I thought she was going to hit me. Not because we'd written a parody but because I was the guy sleeping in the back of the class getting 35% in exams. She told me I was wasting a talent. No-one ever told me I had one of those. She encouraged me to write pretty much every day and she commented on it. By the final exam I got 65% and she put the mark in red in her year book. The only pupil in 30-plus years ever to have that honour.
The confidence it gave me to write helped once I started work. I used that talent to good use. I would eventually graduate top of my MBA class because I had the confidence Mrs Main instilled 25 years earlier. I now teach in a University Business School. I try to teach confidence. There really is no better gift.
To change a life, tell someone you believe in them.
Wow, great story, Stevie…………it can be easy to become invisible. I spent eighth grade completely invisible…….didn't speak to anyone, and not one teacher ever asked what was wrong………..yours is an example of a teacher that cared. Very cool.
mine was my now boss brock..after aging out of foster care and being homeless i felt like no one would give me a chance then i met brock he offered me a job and a place to live ….only condition was i couldnt waste my life drinking like i was i been here since christmas and i love it i get to work with horses and the other ppl that work here are like my family now
Chrissy, you have an amazing story, and I'm proud of what you are accomplishing.
amazing……I want to interview you on the 50 States in 50 Days tour……….
Hi, I’m from Oregon and run a group of current and former foster youth called the Oregon Foster Youth Connection. I am also a former foster youth. I’d love to connect you with someone here to interview if you don’t have someone from Oregon already!
Pamela
Pamela@cffo.org
Pamela, This is 100 percent what I need. Are you anywhere near Portland? Kevin
I have had one daughter age out of foster care and five more who will. My two seniors would talk to you if you would like. They both live with us full time until they age out or longer. Kady
Hello.
I’m Chelsea and when I was 18 I aged out of Foster Care, I’m now 23 and a college student with 3 semesters left of a bachelor’s degree.
Chelsea
(MI)
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