The outlaw in the family...
When I was a a kid I idolized my paternal grandfather, John Oscar. When I came to know him, he lived on a small farm with my paternal grandmother Ida Frances in Stockton, California. He could do no wrong. But that was a little bit of fantasy that hid rather a lot of difficult behavior- he could be a pain in the butt when he put his mind to it. I called him Pa (god knows how I decided on that name! He was emphatic that he not to be called Grandpa- ' pick a name just not Grandpa! '). On reflection, he was a strident 'my way or the highway' guy who had managed trading posts and general stores in the mining areas of territorial Arizona, moved to California where he owned his own grocery, worked for Piggly Wiggly markets, and managed a few different Safeway stores. He retired from Safeway when his job went away during the depression, then supervised a US Army warehouse at Sharpe's Depot in Stockton during WW-II. From what I've been able to learn about him doing gene...