“Even a blind hog finds an akurn every now and then.”  This quote came from a man who had much too class and dressed much too sharply to even utter such a phrase.  But he did.  And he certainly said it with conviction back when his North Carolina Tar Heel football team couldn’t seem to find an “akurn.”  A win, that is.

The man drove me a bit nuts from time to time.  He was a rather short fellow with a meek voice that was seldom raised.  “See – here’s what you need to do,” was his sort of consistent greeting to me, the man who took his place as his oldest daughter’s “provider” in the early ‘80s. “Inadequate” is a rather soft word for how I felt about myself around that man. He was a Marine from the time of World War II.  I was a Safety Patrol Boy in sixth grade.  He changed the oil in his car every 5 blocks.  I had what I called an “automatic oil changer.”  When my car lost all its oil, I replaced it.  He chopped wood and built decks at sunrise.  I sawed wood and drooled at that same time of day.

Before I was married, my custom was to sleep until at least noon every Saturday.  Even after I was married, the Saturday morning honey-do list usually didn’t make its first appearance until some time after 7:15 am.  But one Saturday morning at precisely 7 o’clock, I was awakened by the God-awful sound of a chain saw outside my bedroom window.  I didn’t even know the man was in town.  I wiped away the drool from my cheek and looked out the window as best I could, to find the man, with chain saw in hand, and a freshly opened Budweiser on a stump.  He was cutting down trees in our front yard.   I didn’t care that much about the trees.  But, for the love of God, it was 7 am on a Saturday!

Hey, the man understood.  His daughter’s husband, the blindest of all blind hogs, would likely never find an acorn.  So, with every deliberate arm and saw movement, that man showed his love for his oldest daughter, for her child, and even for the drool-wiping man his daughter chose to marry.

That was Herm.  His name is Herman.  But Herm suited him best.  And he was important.  He worked hard all his life.  And he provided.  In ways that I can only imagine.  He loved his daughters, he loved his first wife, the mother of his children, and after her death, he loved his next wife and her children.  The man’s heart was full of love.  But he somehow reserved most of his love for just one – his only grandchild.  My son.  And it is an unconditional friendship.

I used to envy that friendship.  I guess every dad imagines himself as Andy Taylor, taking young son, Opie, down to the crawdad hole, or camping, or to mountain lodges and the like.  I was more of a city dad.  And not enough of a provider to afford some of the things Herm was able to do for my child.  He showed my young-in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Mexico, Jackson Hole.  He taught my son to fish, to ride trail horses in Wyoming, to ride the rapids down the Snake River.  My son loved it all.  As a young dad, it bothered me a bit that son Opie was off with Floyd or Barney or Aunt Bea or someone other than Andy - his dad.  I regret how I felt back then.  But it is how I felt.

A few weeks ago, I saw Herm with my son again.  This time I found joy in what I saw.  I was in Atlanta with my son.  We went to a North Carolina football game there.  I had been to a few games in Atlanta with his granddad over the years.  My son often reminds me of several important men in my life.  But that weekend with him in Atlanta, it was like walking with a much taller and slightly more outspoken Herm.  My son was friends with everyone.  Just like his granddad always was.

My son lived with his granddad for a while.  Sort of out of necessity.  For both of them.  My son needed a place to live while attending to some important things in his young life.  And Herm needed a familiar face to help see him through the final stages of his old one.  My son was Herm’s best friend.  When Herm died a few years ago, he was my son’s best friend.  That’s how it should be.  

At some point, I lost that Andy Taylor syndrome.  In my heart, Herm took his rightful place as my son’s granddad long ago.  And there has never been any doubt at all that my son loves me.  That envy kind of thing finally faded away to a place near the bottom of some fishing hole somewhere.  But for the longest time, I still wasn’t sure how the old man felt about me.  We were always very friendly to one another.  And the man was generous and loving.  But I was his daughter’s husband and his only grandson’s father.  Maybe he just tolerated the blind hog that just happened into his life.  

One night after spending the evening with my son, and after taking him back to his granddad’s, he asked me to come inside and say hello the old guy.  I was a bit uneasy about doing that.  And I anticipated Herm’s inability to remember me.  But my son insisted.  “It will help him,” he said to me.  So I did.  I went inside.  It took a while for my son to pull his granddad’s attention and blank stare from the big screen television long enough to make it known to him that he had a visitor.  My son bent over, directly in front of Herm’s face, held his feeble hand and said, “Da-Da, you have a visitor.”

“Hey, Matt,” Herm said in his barely audible and old voice.  

“Da-Da, you have a visitor,” my child repeated.  “Look who’s here.”

The old man finally turned his head my way.  After just a couple of seconds of focusing his old and tired eyes, they became filled with the same excitement of life I had witnessed from him for decades.  His lips shaped a smile that I hadn’t seen since Carolina last beat Virginia in Charlottesville nearly 30 years ago.  His hand reached out to mine, and as I grabbed it and squeezed it, he said in his still meek but strong Marine voice, “Hey.  Hey.”  

That was the last night I saw the man outside of the hospice where he died.  

Today is Herm’s birthday.  He would have been 87, I think.  And Herm was right all along.  That last night at his house, this blind hog found something.  The bright light of Herm’s eyes and smile showed me right where it was, and I discovered how the old man had felt about me all along.  

I found my acorn.  Finally.

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