Compound Complex
i totally understood where you were going and I've actually said 'Doutiful Dan' in the same context which is funny.
The context I should have added to my post is this:
My maternal grandfather deserves about 40% credit for the man I am today. Yes, he was a JW & an elder from inception until his death - 3 years 10 months ago. I miss that man more than I can bare; I have a tear running down my cheek just typing about him. This week would have been his 73rd birthday (Thursday) as mine is on Friday.
For so many reasons - far too many to type here and, without being hyperbolic, far too many reasons to enumerate upon over 100 conversations let alone 1 - we were so very close and bonded beyond any rational explanation.
Yes, my dad was a big part too. He is still an elder, etc. and I give him A LOT of credit for my thinking abilities & congregational knowledge; he gets about a 20% share.
But my Pop Pop and his best friend (who was called my 'third grandfather', those man are the reason you & I are conversing on this level. They both get 40%.
i could go on forever about them, but I'll say this, they had ways of breaking through to me in a manner that made an 8 year old boy understand the deeper level of meaning & importance behind everything and how & why to use it, store it, call it to mind when needed and get the benefit from it. Even from something that seems - superficially - to be a waste or pointless; say, for example a young man that can talk & respect historical names, datasets or actors...
My Pop Pop used to call me Dapper Dan every time he saw me in a suit & tie; so, considering my childhood (into adulthood) consisted of mostly the 3 meeting per week era, plus weekend & weeknight ministry, I heard it a lot. Today, now, at 35, it's a very fond memory.
When I read Doutiful Dan, despite my familiarity with it, given this weeks birthdays, I kept seeing 'Dapper Dan'.
To your point about the similarities between you & i, yes I agree based on your tonality & verbiage.
----
Even though he was a JW until the end, you'd have liked him I think.
Quite the man man he was indeed. In fact, when I walked away & married a worldly girl without anyone knowing, he invited her & i to visit him & my grandmother in Florida.
We weren't off the plane by 10 minutes and he started in on my wife...
"So you're the bad association that won over my grandson...yada yada yada...and grilled her - outwardly appearing in a terribly mean way - for the 30 minute car ride.
I bit my tongue because I know the man too well.
When we got to the condo, I purposefully walked ahead and my Pop Pop grabbed her by the arm & stopped her to talk; she was Latina, fiery, and I knew she wanted to explode.
She told me later that he looked at her, he was crying, and said "Toni, I like you. You're now my grandsons wife, I love you. I would do that to a JW girl if he married one. You don't know how special that boy is, what he means to me & what he has inside him."
We went to dinner that night, the place had a piano player, I noticed (because of how I was raised to be so observant) but no one else did, when Pop Pop 'went to the bathroom' but actually slipped by the piano, handed the gentleman a piece of paper wrapped around a $20 and when Pop Pop came back he walked up to my wife & asked her to dance and the piano man began to play 'Just The Way You Are' by Billy Joel.
he was an amazing man. He stuck to his guns about 'the truth' but he truly understood the 'SPIRIT of the law' by the way he treated me & my wife.
