Rendezvous at My Grandfather’s Alma Mater

It is an eight-minute drive to the campus

Of the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor

From the breakfast buffet

At the Holiday Inn Express

Where I and my sweetheart have come

At my whim

To see the campus where my grandfather,

Harold Ross Bowers,

Received his degree,

Master of Science in Pharmacology, in 1928,

Ninety-eight years ago.

..

My grandfather died in Modesto, California,

In what was then called a “mental institution,”

In the early 1960s

During the Kennedy administration,

And the White House sent my family

A certificate of appreciation for his military service

Signed either by JFK himself

Or his signatory ambassador.

..

The one photo I ever saw of my grandfather and me

And my brother Brian

Was probably taken in 1957

Because Brian is in diapers

And I look like I am about three.

In another photo of the batch there are two men,

Literally “the men in the white suits,”

Smiling congenitally for the camera.

And the most touching photo is of him and Dad

His arm around Dad’s shoulder,

He looking rather like an old Woody Guthrie

And Dad like a young Desi Arnaz.

..

Grandfather, I am here,

And I would not exist if not for you.