This morning I saw a photo of Red Grange, the Galloping Ghost, one of the original NFL super stars. The black and white photo shows Grange making a cut away from defenders at the line of scrimmage. A referee trails in the background wearing muted colors, not the zebra stripes we are used to today, and a newsboy cap on his head. The crowd in the stands are faded and fuzzy, almost as if there is fog on the playing field. The effect makes it appear as though Grange is shrouded in the haze, about to slip through the oncoming defenders fingers as smoke, untouchable, a ghost.

“THE GALLOPING GHOST!”. The photo evokes my grandfather’s excited exclamation in my mind. As a little boy I envisioned something closer to the headless horseman rather than a man scoring touchdowns when my grandfather was a young man. I saw a foggy skeleton wearing a leather football cap, cradling the ball to his chest mounted on a black horse charging through a gap in the defensive line.

I would sit kitty corner from Grandpa at his house on Saturday mornings. Grandpa sat with his arms folded tightly across his chest, across his v-neck sweater, always a shade of brown. His legs stuck straight out from his body, creating 45 degree angles where feet met floor. His dim eyes, beginning to be lost in his sagging face, focused on the Notre Dame game on the ancient television and myself alternately.

Cross-legged across from him I would listen intently about the Great Depression, his childhood memories of the end of World War I, the brothers he lost in World War II, how as a child he bought buckets of beer for his father at the corner bar, his time playing on the FBI office baseball team and of the Galloping Ghost.

As I grew Grandpa’s mind became a galloping ghost. It thundered past the most recent decades and settled back to the days of Red Grange and Babe Ruth, to buckets of beer and armistices. There came a day when he no longer recognized my little sister. His face began to slip further and further to the floor. His Irish hair finally began to whiten, to thin, to wisp, to drift to the ceiling.

He moved into a home for people whose mind’s were also escaping. That place smelled like bleach and chicken stock and it made my stomach sick. When I heard grandpa’s story about the Galloping Ghost for the 20th time that day I knew I could not see him again. A teenager, a weak boy unaccustomed to the realities of old age. Unaccustomed to facing my personal mortality. I galloped away.

The next time I saw him he was gone, all the way gone. It had been years, and for years prior he had become a stranger. I’ve cried more writing this than I did then. But the teen aged me had already galloped away.

But I came back, a prodigal son of time. Reflection takes time.
Rest in peace Jack, you are missed.