3/6/9 (R.I.P. Just re-'Pete'-in)

March 6, this year, creates a roundly perfect set of numbers:

The month 3 times 1. The month 3 times 2. The month 3 times 3.

March 6 is the day in 1985 that my dad's dad died....Grandpa Pete, who with my Grandma Blanche, co-owned the newspaper in Cando, North Dakota for (aptly) 3 decades.

Grandpa had a good heart (and a strong heart) for rural North Dakota, but with that came lifelong heart ailments that eventually took his life one Wednesday morning, early. He was 71. He was foremost a businessman, but secondly a writer, with a weekly column of pilfered stories known as "Just re-Pete-in".

Those 2 roles defined Grandpa's life to both the community and our family. But when I wrote my 2002 master's thesis on the newspaper, many things I remembered had nothing to do with those roles.

Here's a paragraph that I like:

"Grandpa died when I was 12. My memories of him are limited to his hairline and his trembling hands that reached above his head as he argued the value of Reaganomics. Plaid-patterned slacks. An artful dexterity with poker cards. A hankering for a can of Pabst Blue Ribbon beer on his supper tray."