Remembering Grandpa Dale: strong, quiet and full of love </MCC HEAD>

Story last updated at 8:21 PM on Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Remembering Grandpa Dale: strong, quiet and full of love

When I was a little kid, I called my Grandpa Dale "Combine Grandpa." We lived in Michigan then and Grandpa lived in Idaho, where he owned and operated a beet farm for much of his life. The thing I remembered most about him -- other than his strong, calloused hands -- was his great, green and glorious John Deere combine tractor he used to plant and harvest the beets.

He would give me rides on the combine, of course, and in between visits I had a toy John Deere combine I would play with while thinking of Grandpa.

Aaron Selbig

Later, when I was 8, my family moved to Arizona, where Grandpa Dale and Grandma Jean had retired. They lived just down the street from us and although Combine Grandpa didn't have his combine anymore, we were able to visit just about every day.

Grandpa Dale never fully retired, though. He was always working on something.

In the mid-1980s, for instance, Grandpa designed and built a barbecue grill that ran on solar panels. He put together the strange-looking contraption in his garage and although Grandpa wasn't the type of man to brag, I still remember the look of pride on his face the first time we cooked up burgers and dogs on it. They were delicious.

When he wasn't working in his shop on a new invention or an intricate woodworking project, Grandpa spent a lot of time on Ol' Betsy -- a beautiful, black 1930 Model A Ford he picked up at an auto show. Ol' Betsy had a rumble seat in the back, where my sister Amy and I would sit and wave to the jealous neighborhood kids when Grandpa would take us out for a spin on Sunday afternoons.

Grandpa sold Ol' Betsy a long time ago but I still have a little piece of her -- a toy model of the car that Grandpa and I built together out of a block of wood and some roller skate wheels.

As I got older, I spent more and more time with my friends and less time with Grandpa and Grandma. When I decided to join the Army after high school, Grandpa -- a veteran of World War II who was part of the D-Day invasion as an artilleryman -- was one of several family members who tried to talk me out of it. It was that military experience, however, that later brought Grandpa and me back together.

When I got out of the Army and returned home, I went over to Grandpa and Grandma's house to visit. Grandpa, who never talked about the war, went into his bedroom, rummaged around in the closet and produced a box that I had never seen before.

It seemed uncharacteristic of him to collect mementos, but there they were -- a box full of medals, military patches from the 94th Infantry Division and a stack of worn, black-and-white photographs of his old buddies and their march across Europe in 1944 and 1945. We talked for a long while that day about what it meant to be in the military, to serve your country and forge unbreakable bonds with the men you serve with.

I always knew Grandpa was proud of me because he was never afraid to tell me so when I deserved it, but that day when he showed me his secret box from the war, I felt like I might someday measure up to him. I felt like a man.

Grandpa Dale, or Combine Grandpa, passed away Sunday morning at the age of 88.

He was a war hero. He was an expert woodworker. He was a loving husband and an awesome grandpa. He was an artist, a farmer and a lover of comic strips and old cars.

He was a pioneer in the field of renewable energy.

He was my grandpa and I'm going to miss him.

Aaron Selbig is a reporter for the Homer News. He can can be reached at aaronselbig.@homernews.com.