What Would Granddad Think?

I never knew either of my grandfathers; they both died before I came along. Nonetheless, I often find myself thinking about my dad’s father these days. My grandfather was an extraordinary letter writer, and the letters he wrote to Dad in 1942 and 1943 are a family treasure. Dad gave the letters to Nana, and no Harris family gathering was complete until the letters were brought out and a few of them read aloud.

In one letter he said he grew up taking one bath a week. Then, “your mother” insisted he take two baths a week. And now, “your mother and Jane” were telling him he should take a bath every day. In the middle of another letter a page is covered in ink. On the following page, in the style of a play-by-play announcer describing a running back moving from one spot in the house to another, he explains how the ink got on the paper. One of the letters is an essay on the fanny.

The letter I keep thinking about these days begins, “The headline in tonight’s Sun-Telegraph is ‘Allies pushed back 5 miles in North Africa.’” (That is not a direct quote; I don’t have a copy of the letter and I’m relying on my memory.) My grandfather then told Dad that had the Allies pushed the Germans back, it would have gone unmentioned in German papers. Or if it was, it would have called an Axis victory. I don’t remember if he used the term “strategic redeployment,” but that is what he was getting at. My grandfather went on to tell Dad that press freedom was one of the things we were fighting for. That we were stronger because of our freedoms, including freedom  of the press.

So I wonder: what would my grandfather say about the current president and his calls to silence those who disagree with him?