My Grandfather's Great-Grandson

My Grandpa Kimber was famous (and still is, I suppose) in our family for many reasons. Not so much for the reasons you'd think: because he was a kind and loving father, a good provider, a wonderful conversationalist, a man of God. He was all of those things, and we loved him for them. But I'd have to say that the things that come to mind most strongly are his sense of humor and his sense of adventure. Oh, and his bad table manners. He used to do the grossest thing at the table: to get someone's attention, he'd take his fork and press the tines very lightly into their arm. AFTER HE'D EATEN OFF IT. It got our attention for sure, so I guess mission accomplished.

And then there was The Throwing of the Food. Not to start a food fight or anything, but because he couldn't be bothered to pass food through regular channels. Like, say, handing it to the person next to you so they could send it down the table. He didn't throw everything, it was mostly just bread, usually toast, since the toaster was at his end of the table. You'd think he was born and raised in the backwoods of Tennessee, right? But no. He came from a wealthy family and grew up in Newport, Rhode Island. Posh. And still there was the bread throwing. It got to the point that he'd throw you the bread or whatever even if you were only a seat away from him.

This morning Judah pulled the bookmark out of my book (again). It's metal and kind of special to me, so I asked him to please bring it to me. He looked at me from five feet away, smiled, and, instead of taking the three steps, threw it to me. At that moment he looked just like my grandpa. Toast will never be safe around here again.