By Jim Hagarty
2013
Among all the pretty much useless facts I have accumulated over the years and never bothered to confirm because I am too lazy to do so is this one: We take our characteristics more from our grandparents than we do from our parents.
I don’t know whether or not this is scientifically true, but I do know that it seems to apply in my case. I never met my grandfathers but I think I share a lot of their characteristics. One was a writer and the other a musician, even though they farmed for a living. I consider myself both a writer and musician.
My Dad was neither of those things. However, he was a good farmer and businessman, something that might not have been true of his father, whose children thought of him as a dreamer. Dad’s business skills might have come from his grandfather who came from Ireland at the age of 18, cleared and farmed 150 acres, made a good living and retired when he was 55.
All of this is a long preamble to this: I am fascinated with Hank Williams and the other night I got hooked on a bunch of YouTube videos of his grandson Hank III performing. He is shown doing a couple of songs at the Grand Ole Opry and the resemblance to his Grampa both in appearance and sound is scary. Some people who attended the concert thought they were seeing a ghost.
Despite that, he is his own man – covered in tattoos and long hair – and he performs both country music and punk rock. The dozens of images of him on the Internet seem to portray him as a pretty wild guy. He and I would probably not have a lot in common and I can’t imagine a conversation between the two of us. But he does revere his Grandpa’s music and so do I so there would be that.
