Editorial: Marion Patch Remembers Edwin Gurnee Raynor

Edwin Gurnee Raynor, my grandfather and a World War II veteran, died last March. The man who helped give life to my father left this planet and bestowed onto me a plastic magnifying glass tied to a metal chain with a clip at the end. Right now, it's buried beneath an empty bag of Hot Cheetos and a traffic ticket that now serves as my license in my armchair glove-box.

Clearly, I'm making him proud.

That magnifying glass is my grandfather. It's cheesy and worn, but it also represents the quality I admire most in him: his unyielding, passive observation of the world. That manifested itself in his rich stories of his time in the war — a U.S. Army soldier joyriding on abandoned Nazi motorcycles, slipping on pools of vomit and oatmeal from his sea-sick fellow troops on the top deck of a tanker — but it also showed in his daily life.

Share your stories, photos and videos on Veterans Day in the comment section. Post pictures and videos to our Eyes and Ears page or via your smartphone by downloading the Tumblr app. Or, sign up to blog to tell a story about your experiences or those of a family member or friend who has served our country. You can also email us.

I took a cross-country train trip with him and the entire time he couldn't stop commenting with amazement on what seemed like every blade of grass he saw out the window. When we would pass by a busy street: "Wow, do you see all those cars? Can you just imagine how many cars there are? It's really amazing, Scott, when I think of how many cars are out there."

The trip lasted for two and a half days.

At the time I coped with his incessant talking by plugging my iPod's earbuds as close to my eardrums as possible, but I now come to admire the part of my grandfather that never stopped being blown away.

What causes that to take root in a person and not wilt after 87 years?

It struck me the last time I saw him, in a hospital in Janesville, WI. He lay there in loose fitting hospital gown looking deflated, defeated and de-colorized. Helpless.

That image reminded me of his World War II photo-book, in which contained page after page — dozens of photos — of pale, puppet-like people piled like dolls on a playroom floor.

He went to war when he was 17. And that was after growing up in the most profound economic collapse known to America, and after his father abandoned his family suddenly and without explanation. The reason for the child-like highs and lows in his life may be that his tragic adolescent experiences arrested his maturation.

That explains his child like fascination with small details of the world and his heroine-like dependency on the Discovery Channel. It also explains the explosive anger and the immature use of manipulation to get us to pay him attention.

If I was stuck at 17, I would still dress like this and feel visceral anger when anyone doubted my "diverse" taste in music and my thoughts on the finest video games.

But me, my siblings and my cousins benefited from his state. For all his faults as a father, his reflexive knowledge of immaturity made him understand his grandchildren on a deep level. His love, patience, generosity and lame humor were boundless. So, while some of his seven sons and daughters might feel a little jilted by his inability to grow up, that was his greatest gift to his 17 grandchildren. I doubt any of us don't think of the time we spent with him as kids as some of our fondest memories.

Now, as I think of our time together and my real-world responsibilities it reminds me that my childhood died alongside my grandfather. So the sadness I feel is as much about me as his love and lame jokes.

I'll leave you with a lame joke he played on many waitresses — an embarrassing ploy that was to the benefit of his grandchildren.

“Can I start you off with something to drink?"

"Coffee."

"Regular or decafe?"

"I'll have de-cow."