I can still see him rocking in his wicker-backed chair with an opened book in his hands.

It isn't the best photograph in the world and even my autofix on Adobe was not the "automatic fix" that was needed.  Nevertheless, my memory is more clear than the photograph.  My mind fills in the details that the border of the photo cuts off.  I see the dresser to the left where Granddad kept his record collection.  He loved music.  He loved Gilbert and Sullivan. He loved John Phillip Sousa marches.  He loved Irish ballads. These records were the old style, 78 rpm, records that could break as well as become scratched.  He had two albums to play for my sister and me.  One was songs from Looney Tunes cartoons featuring Bugs Bunny.  The other one was Mickey and the Beanstalk.  It was a narration of the Disney animated short by the same name.  But he had other interests that are visible in the photo.  The rocking chair was His Chair in the bedroom that he shared with my grandmother.  The bookshelf you see was made by my father in his building trades class when my father was in junior high.  It is oak and it sits in the living room of my oldest daughter today.  His radio is on the top of the bookshelf to the left of the photo where you see a short row of white dots.  Those are dots are part of the tuning dial on the radio.  There was nothing automatic about the radio.  The knobs had to be turned "just so" to hear the stations he like.  Granddaughters could get a scolding if little hands messed with those knobs.  The funny shaped thing between the radio and the stack of books is his reading lamp.  That lamp shade was red with a white trimmed ruffle around the bottom.  He is reading a book in this picture.  He loved to read and he loved books.  He had a variety of books.  Many of the books in his collection were related to his occupation as a machinist.  He had books on gunsmithing.  He had a copy of Ben Hur by Lew Wallace.  He had books on Free Masonry. He had books on weather prediction. He had his Bible.  His encyclopedia was a one volume reference called Lincoln Library.  He loved to learn.  As you can see, he surrounded himself by his books.  My grandparents' bedroom was almost like a studio apartment.  That was because they shared the house with my grandfather's half-brother's family.  Family privacy for reading and listening to the radio was reserved for the sitting areas of the bedrooms.  The living room was for large gatherings and special occasions.  Time together for the two families when I was a child was sitting in rocking chairs on the front porch.  The living room had no radio and no television. My grandparents finally purchased a television for their bedroom about 1955.  This photo is prior to the inclusion of the TV in the bedroom because Granddad turned his chair to face the opposite direction when the television became a part of their lives.  All of this ended in 1957 when Granddad passed away in July.  I was eight years old.  Yet I can remember the details of Granddad's corner of the bedroom as if he were sitting in that rocking chair today with a book in his hand and a little Gilbert and Sullivan emanating from his record player.



My Grandfather, Richard W. Wiggins II. Original photo in the possession of the author.