This community has lost a gem. I knew John Grigsby as a child. His eldest daughter, Mary Lou, and I grew up together in the First Presbyterian Church. We’ve been lifelong friends, and our memories mesh in a familiar patchwork of small town life in the Indiana of the 1950s.
Our parents worked in the church, and both John and Louise were very active with Westminster Fellowship (the youth group of that era). Later, as an adult, I had a friendship with the man I had always known as “Mr. Grigsby” that outstripped anything I had ever imagined.
You see, we belonged to a small coffee group known as “The Round Table”
— so-named for the location of our table in what was then the downtown Chicken Inn. Martin Zinser played host to us every morning and our numbers ranged from five to more than eleven.
Our compliment included businessmen like John, attorneys, insurance men, a barber, a fireman, a minister or two, a golf pro, and a traveling salesman. If I’ve omitted a category, forgive me. The group disbanded with the closure of the downtown restaurant, and although members have gathered in other places over the last few years, it just hasn’t been the same.
Crowded around that table in good weather or foul, good times or bad, we tackled topics that ranged from basketball and football to the politics of the day. Now, politics have a way of changing, but problems seem to endure — either ones of too much spending or too little. If someone had a health problem, everyone tried valiantly to put a bright face on it.
Over the years, we’ve lost a lot of people. There are likely less than six of the original members now. John came whenever he could, although at the group’s zenith, he was busy with Culligan and Grigsby Realty. He had a zest for life. He was a man of faith. I had seen that all my life, but perhaps never so much as I watched him care for his wife after a debilitating stroke. She never lacked for care or love, and he kept her at home. Today, many people don’t do that. John did.
Looking back, I realize that I didn’t take the time to appreciate the qualities of my parents’ generation. They were — and in some cases today — are different. A few of my classmates still enjoy the pleasure of a parent’s company. I can never walk into the First Presbyterian Church without closing my eyes as I sit in the pew and seeing the faces of all the people who helped guide me to adulthood.
As today’s children are driven to this event or that, I grieve that more are not driven to church activities. Oh, there are families who involve their children in religion, but I think the numbers are fewer these days than in the past.
If you are as fortunate as I am, perhaps you will forge a friendship with the parent of a friend. If you are really lucky, it will be a person of the high moral character and ethics of a John Grigsby. Whenever I glimpse a picture of a golfer kneeling to assess that last putt on the green, I will smile and think of a similar photo in the Grigsby home. John is studying his putt and his wife and girls are looking on with pride — just before he brought home the Elks Blue River Golf Course Championship.
If there’s golf in heaven, they’ve gained a grand player. Good-bye, John. Many of us will miss you. You were a gem among stones.