It's WB's Birthday.

I’ve been missing the old man a lot lately. It being the 93rd anniversary of his birth, I thought I'd post a letter I received not too long ago from his grandson William Brown Simpson II . He had planned to read it last year at Dad's memorial service but was unable to do so.

A Letter to My Father

From the day I realized that I was capable of something, whatever that something may have been, be it earning a dollar, to writing a song, to finding my way through an education, my ambition has sought your approval. Ever eager am I to show you the person I have become by way of this or that accomplishment. I remember as a young kid, you and mom required that I complete 15 chores, and once 15 tallies had accumulated on my checklist, a five dollar bill would appear out of thin air. You would return from your 9-5 job and I’d rush to meet you in the driveway, before any aspect of home life could distract you, the bill stretched above my head like the belt of a champion boxer. And there your praise would wait, in the form of recognition, an embrace and a smile. The scene remains lucid in my waking conscience, its value intrinsic to my dignity and zeal. Though these five dollars eventually bought candy and soda from the local market, your initial congratulations for my efforts tasted much sweeter.

It is only in retrospect that I can comprehend the irony of this situation, a father returning from a job he loathes but an income he cannot yet discard, and his son greeting him with a dirty slice of the same mess, the mechanisms of capital already instilled upon his five-year-old brain. But, like I’ve said, it was not the money that I held in such high regard, rather the acknowledgment you might afford in light of my achievement. This acknowledgment, through my youth and young adulthood, has granted me the nerve to keep at the most arduous of tasks, compelled to arrive at a worthwhile conclusion. Put simply, never could I imagine a more driving incentive than your support and appreciation of my work. You have concurrently been my biggest fan and my toughest critic; your steadfast honesty, impeccable cynicism, and placid temperament have, without doubt, been variables to the product of my morality and principle. For this contribution, I cannot thank you enough.

This said, I now turn to my namesake, a certain William Brown Simpson the first, 73 years my senior and the subject around which we now gather. I regret to say that I knew the man too little, so young was I during the last of his cognizant years, and too violently senile was he once my sociability had matured. Consequently, the grandfather I am most familiar with is one of stories, pictures, and thoughtful imagination. These illustrations, for better or for worse, culminate in the image of a curmudgeon, a staunch and unforgiving man; seldom have I heard a flattering anecdote in reference to dubble-yoo bee. But on that same note, for even the most unfavorable of attributes hold virtue, I must call forward the fruits of his immovable disposition: his service in a war that comes so close to being analogous with justice, his role in a business that has spanned generations and continues to support members of this family, and his provisions for six children in some of this country’s most transitional years, are all praiseworthy and should, in some way, be attributed to his bleak determination.

To this end, I was finally able to identify with the man. While he held tightly to his final hours, I held his hand in mine and thanked him for his tenacity. This, I reflect, was the closest I’d come to my grandfather. Only in this moment of tranquility, the old man docile, could I measure his significance upon my life. That significance stood on the other side of the bed, in the form of my father, he too finding some form of overdue solace. There we stayed, three generations in the limbo of imminent death, weighing the gratitude we owed one another. Henceforth, I am obliged to thank my grandfather for the example he set for his son, and my father’s ability to take from that example what he found most upstanding, namely the realization of one’s ideals. I am my father’s son, avid in comparing to his worldliness and generosity, ever hopeful that I may resemble his capacity. In effect, I find the departed responsible for my sincere approach to living.