I’ve had this homemade cribbage board for many years, since 2009 actually. It was created long before that, apparently, in a shop class at Messalonskee High School in Oakland, ME during the late fall of 1982. I look at the item now, as I hold it in my hands, and I think about the more complex story behind all of those simple details. I think about it for the first time in a long time and with a new, dawning realization of what it means.

I spend a measurable amount of time of late thinking about people I’ve lost. I’m not sure if it’s healthy or unhealthy. I know a few things for sure, however. As I get older, there seem to be a lot more of them. And I know, as much as I miss them all, each one has taught me something valuable and, if I’m to honor their memory and the love between us, I need to use that knowledge the right way and live my life as such.

2009 is when my grandfather “Pa” LaRue passed away. He was a beloved figure in our family, a legend in his hometown, a wonderful man in all aspects. A lot of grandchildren would say that about their Grandpa, I know. So allow me to elaborate. He was a veteran of two wars in two branches of the service. During World War II he served in the United States Navy and was aboard the troop transports that landed American forces on the beached of Normandy at D-Day. Later, he entered the Marine Corps and once again travelled overseas, this time in the Korean conflict. With a record like that, you can imagine how respected he was at his local Legion Post where he was eventually elected Commander.

I remember him a bit differently, of course. To me, he was smiling, happy and forever tanned, wandering shirtless in the summers through his back yard, tending his vegetable garden and keeping the pool clean and ready for his family to swim in. And swim we did. Long summers in the seaside town in which he lived where all relatives gathered to enjoy his home and presence. Cookouts, fresh lobsters delivered by a fisherman friend, fried clams and onion rings from the local dive bar that made them to perfection. His wife, Grammy, was a strong, loving woman, fiercely protective and often somewhat vexed by the fact that Pa took very little seriously in life. He seemed determined to simply enjoy it as much as possible in all possible ways. Except leaving his neighborhood. He had little interest in travel later in life. Who could blame him when all his previous travel had visited upon him only the images of war?

In that neighborhood, everyone knew him. On his walks down to the pub he’d be saying hello with a smile to everyone he passed. Everyone was a friend and there were no enemies that I was aware of. How could there be. There was no way not to like the man. I remember all his best friends had nicknames. Buster, Shorty and his own, Lash. Lash LaRue. I thought he was the Mayor of that town, it seemed there was nowhere he was not welcome and no one he didn’t know.

We all loved him. He was everything to me, especially when I needed him. Saturday mornings were our time together, he’d pick me up at 6:00 am to help me with my paper route. Only he’d already delivered most of them on the way to me as he stood outside my window throwing small pebbles at my bedroom window to wake me up. Whatever was left we’d do together, me sitting on the hood of his sage green Dodge Charger as we drove slowly from house to house. Then we’d go to his work and do a weekend building check, walking through a big, empty school just the two of us which seemed like an adventure every time. I imagined I was the only student priviledged enough to be able to see behind the scenes like that. What an honor. He’s show me the medical classroom where there was an actual human skeleton on display and he’d joke this was the gentleman who’d done his job before him. The jokes were endless, everything was an opportunity to laugh. After work, we’d reward ourselves with some pancakes and then the rest of the day was ours to do whatever we wanted, maybe some baseball or swimming.

In colder weather we played card games together. He taught me his favorite game, Cribbage. I can remember playing it at the little kitchen table next to the window that looked out to the little yard and neighborhood. We played on homemade boards with matches as pegs, long, drawn out games where I’m sure his patience came into play as he taught a young boy the rules of the game. He would usually win but eventually my head for math at least allowed me to be competetive. He seemed to win a lot in his daily life, as a softball coach, a card player or even the lottery. Luck seemed to follow him. It like him as much as everyone else did.

I look at the date on the back of that Cribbage board I made for him and I understand now, as an older man, what it meant in truth to the 14 year old boy who made it. That summer, in 1982, my parents had made the choice to move us to Maine to get away from the suburbs and nearer to the wilderness we always enjoyed during vacations. It might as well have been Alaska as far as Pa was concerned. He was a man, and we were a family, used to living within walking distance of one another, always visiting, always sharing our time. We were very close.

I remember vividly the image of him standing in our driveway as we all drove away in the moving van, the smiles and laughter all gone, tears welling up in his eyes like his heart was breaking. It shocked me and moved me an maybe some glimmer of what was happening, how our lives might be changing.

So that fall as I was undoubtedly tasked with making something out of wood for my newest class at Messalonskee High, I chose to make that Cribbage board. I know now why. It was not just some Christmas gift, not some small thing I could make to satisfy the requirement. I could have made anything but I chose that. It was not just an assignment completed or a holiday present for a family member.

It was a young boy missing his grandfather, his friend and the one man in his life he truly looked up to. Missing him badly.

I understand that now. Luckily, our Maine adventure did not last forever and we returned to Massachusetts and some semblance of the life we had know. There was disruption and some chaos but our grandparents remained what they had always been, a rock solid refuge for love and support to all of us during times we badly needed it. As I grew older, became a man in my own right, married and had children, I realized it was Pa’s guidance at work on me. I was trying to live as he taught me to. I think I was aware and appreciative. I hope I was.

In later years, after he had lost his beloved wife and lived alone, I would stop by to see him every Saturday on my way home from my own job and we would sit and chat. I think I knew he was fading but we still had our Saturda’s and a million wonderful memories. Sometimes we’d play cards. Often just sit quietly in the sun on the little deck, not saying much or listening to a game on the radio. I feel very grateful Iwas able to do that, had the sense to spend that time. I was there for him in the end, too. The last day. I can’t recall what I said in his eulogy but I know he somehow gave me the strength to get through it and not break down until I returned to my seat.

I miss him. We all do. We think about him, talk about him, and laugh all the time. He’s still gifting us with his humor even though he’s no longer here. We have the stories and the memories and the spirit of what he was like. The smile on my face is, in a way, his smile. I carry that with me and try to live like he did. Humble, respectful, good to people, close to those he loved and always there for them. I try.

I’m playing Cribbage again, too. Just the other night a friend came over with his board and I was reintroduced to the game. We laughed and enjoyed it. I showed him my homemade one and told him about Pa. He appreciated to tale and understood innately from his own experience. Some things you only really understand in latter years.

Like that board I thought I was making as a gift was actually not that at all. I’d already been given a gift. The board was simply me realizing it.

“I think that I shall never see,
A poim as lovely as a tree.”