Captain John
John Foster

Captain John had a way with words. I remember when my sister was still in diapers; every time she would soil them when we came to visit he would lean over and tell me she was "making treasures" for mom to find. Indeed, if that's what treasures were I was sure to never become a treasure hunter! I was only five years old at the time my sister was making treasures, but I never forgot how Captain John or Grandpa as I called him could conjure up the coolest little phrases to describe those things in life that were, well, less than pleasant.

When people he knew had passed on, he would never say that they had died, that just wasn't the Captain; he would say that they'd taken a "dirt nap". That one is probably one of my favorites. If he had been alive during the whole movement to make things politically correct, he would definitely gone down as one of the founding fathers. After all he was the first to tell my mother that she wasn't short, just "vertically challenged".

Grandpa had his own mental dictionary, that's for sure. I remember one particular conversation at dinner when I was about seven; he was going off about how the people in Washington were all "crooks". I looked up at him and I just had to ask "What's a crook Grandpa?" He told me to look up the words "banker" and "politician" in the dictionary and I'd learn all there was to know about the "real crooks of this country".

Needless to say, Captain John did not like banks. He did not trust them; he kept all his money wadded up in a pair of old socks in his dresser drawer. That was where he kept everything important. The four pair of khakis he wore in rotation through the week along with a few button up shirts were up top in easy reach. Below that there were a few empty Crown Royal bottles he had saved to remember special occasions. Now that I think about it, if Crown Royal was for special occasions, Scotch was for everyday drinking. Grandpa wasn't a drunk, but he did enjoy a good "snort" of Scotch as he called it, every now and then, of course.

Grandpa's gift for words also lent itself to some great storytelling. I wrote a paper once in high school on JFK and I decided one Sunday afternoon to pay grandpa a visit and see if he could lend any insights into my project. As it turns out, he had quite a lot to say. I was seventeen years old at the time and until that day I never knew that during the time my Grandparents were living in Texas, they had been neighbors with George Bush Senior and his family. He proceeded to tell me the story of how JFK's Granddad secured the family fortune. What he did, according to Grandpa was to stockpile as much alcohol as he could afford to and as soon as prohibition went into effect, he proceeded to bootleg it with the help of certain mob connections, and thus the family fortune, as well as the much publicized ties to organized crime were born.

While this was interesting enough to be sure, I had to ask; "What does all this have to do with the assassination of JFK?" Now grandpa had three veins in his forehead. The one that ran up the center would bulge when he was slightly agitated and the other two which ran up the sides of his receding gray hair line only made their presence know on special occasions. My question had precipitated such an occasion; if there was one thing he couldn't stand it was being interrupted in the middle of telling a story. "Patience!" he exclaimed.

"Who do you think was head of the CIA when JFK was assassinated?!!" "I don't know grandpa, who?" "George Bush!" he replied. According to grandpa, Bush made the hit on JFK because long as JFK was running the country, then it was really being run by the mob, and if any crook was going to be running the country it was going to be him, not JFK. So there I had it, a story so explosive that I dared not write it. I copped out and went with the Oswald angle instead.

Grandpa didn't care much for politicians, but he always voted. He said it was up to us to pick the "lesser of the two crooks". I wish he had been around to see the circus they had in Florida last election. I think my Grandmother does a good job of emulating how he would have responded to that whole mess.

Captain John got his title for being a navy captain during WWII. His friends would always call him captain when they would come by to visit. He never talked much about the war and I somehow knew not to ask. I could tell by the respect he got from his friends that he must have been a powerful man in those days but I could also tell that he had moved on and was much happier with his role as father and grandfather.

Grandpa passed a few years ago, and my grandmother now lives alone in the two story house they once shared. Each summer, I travel back home to the place I grew up, and always spend a few days visiting my grandmother. She is always telling me how much I remind her of John. I never really noticed it that much before, but when I look down at the khaki pants I'm wearing and realize that I don't own enough to last a whole week without washing, I cant help but to see a little of the Captain in myself. For the record though, I'm not a cheap or sloppy dresser, I'm just fashionably challenged.