From Steerage to Sunday Dinners

My grandfather was conceived in steerage class on a ship crossing the Atlantic, his parents fleeing Europe in the early 20th century in search of something better.

On his birth certificate, he was named Archibald — an aristocratic, old-world European name. But when he was old enough to choose for himself, he chose Harry Robert.

Reinvention runs in our blood.

He worked his way through college and law school as a swim instructor at the YMCA. Stroke by stroke, lesson by lesson, he paid his own way. He became a high-powered criminal defense attorney in Detroit — commanding, sharp, unshakable.

When I was in junior high, my class took a field trip downtown to the Wayne County courthouse. My mom came along as a chaperone. My grandfather met us there and brought us into an empty courtroom. He let some of us sit in the jury box while he spoke.

I don’t remember a single word he said.

But I remember the feeling.

I remember sitting there at thirteen, watching my grandfather address my class, and feeling so proud I could barely contain it.

That thirteen-year-old girl wanted to be a lawyer like her father and her grandfather. She thought she knew exactly what her life would look like.

It turned out differently.

And somehow… it got better.

To me, my Poppy was steady, commanding, and utterly unafraid. The kind of man who faced criminals all week and still tended roses on the weekend.

He defended clients in Michigan courtrooms Monday through Friday. In Florida, where they lived part of the year, he went looking for quiet — out on the Atlantic, deep-sea fishing, as if the salt air could wash away the noise of the courtroom.

Back home, he traded legal briefs for pruning shears and tended his rose garden like it was another kind of argument — one requiring patience instead of persuasion.

He drove an olive green four-door sedan permanently perfumed with cigars. The scent was embedded in the upholstery. Long after he stopped driving it, the car still smelled like him.

It was eventually passed down to my cousin Lee. Can you imagine teenage Lee trying to pick up his girlfriend in that olive green, cigar-scented sedan?

I’m not sure it helped his teenage swagger, but somehow Jayne stayed.

Maybe that’s the real inheritance.

You couldn’t sit in that car without smelling Poppy.

And somehow, we didn’t mind.

It felt like he was still riding with us.

He’s been gone for more than forty years.

A couple of years ago, I had the privilege of traveling to Cuba. My dad once told me he had gone to Cuba with Poppy as a teenager. There’s even a photo of my dad, young and proud, smoking a cigar next to him.