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Mrs. Thalia Ludlow had a little book in her head titled: Capt. Robert Edward Ludlow Sr.'s Laser Hot Takes, with Supplemental Sidelights from Grandchildren Robert Edward III and Edwina. The book was being added to at that very moment because somebody had called Capt. Ludlow with some foolishness.
“Well, of course you find that a difficult situation, because it was explained a long time ago: every occasion to actually do the right thing is hard for people like you who are used to doing evil.”
But then, next to the usual rhetorical brutality was the compassion:
“Been there, done that myself – get over it, Sergeant, before you destroy everything you love.”
And that was the thing about Capt. Ludlow, and his two grandchildren most like him: they were forward, and blunt, but they did love. Men who had served with the grandfather still called because they knew that while to the world Capt. Ludlow wore the nickname “Hell to Pay,” to them he was Capt. R.E. “Tough Love” Ludlow. His grandchildren had just adopted James Brown's “Papa Don't Take No Mess” to understand him, but they trusted and loved him utterly, responding to the deep love within him for them … and they loved that in explaining the world, sometimes he just cut to the chase.
“Look, Edwina,” he had recently said, “people are just stupid. They don't grow out of it – it's a choice we have to make to choose to learn, to grow, to heal, and to become wise. I deal with it every day, and I'm in inpatient therapy to make sure I don't go back to being stupid.”
Just as recently he had said to his oldest grandchildren ten-year-old Andrew and eleven-year-old Eleanor: “I'm going to explain it this way: I'm not going feed you twice in four years and think you're going to be OK. That's bad grandfathering. A lot of people are loud and scary in election years like your stomachs would be growling because they don't feed their politics in between. That's bad politicking.”
“OK, but … uh … wouldn't we die if you did that?” Andrew said.
“And that's exactly why the nation is in the mess it is in right now,” Capt. Ludlow said.
“Oh,” both Andrew and Eleanor had said, because suddenly, it made sense.
“Look, Sergeant, take it from a man who made all the bad choices and has all the dead family bodies to prove it: what you need to do is stop being stupid, stop whining, stop making everyone else responsible for your bad decisions, and get your life together. Your problem is that you love your foolishness. Stop it.”
And, another entry went into the book!
“Your problem is that you love your foolishness. Stop it.”
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