The most important event of August 2, 1917, at least in my view, was when my father, Grady V. Paris Jr., was born in the little town of Cave Spring, Georgia. I was thinking about my father and his birthday, so I looked back at some of old pictures I scanned a while ago.  Here are a few of them.

I think this is a high school picture. He was probably a senior, which in those days meant his was in the 11^th grade, since high school went only as far as that.

Grady V. Paris — the teen years

My father was a happy man. He maintained a child-like enthusiasm for almost everything for his entire life. He loved kids, but most of all he loved his kids.

My father, Henry and me

He spent a lot of time working around the house, so he ended up in worn, paint-stained clothes a lot of the time. When my brother and I were old enough, my father started taking us to the same places he had gone when he was a kid. I think he enjoyed those outings as much as we did, and as much as he had when he was young.

I like this picture. I’m not sure what his expression means here, but it was unusual for him. The car in the background is a 1949 Buick that I remember pretty well, considering that I was only one model year newer.

Bow ties were in

This picture was made around Christmas, probably in the early ‘70s. That’s me and my brother Henry flanking our parents. Everyone was a lot younger then, but for some reason when I think of my father, I tend to picture him at about this age.

The Paris family

My father’s health declined fairly rapidly over the last year or so of his life. He suffered from pulmonary fibrosis as a result of gastroesophageal reflux. It was not diagnosed early enough to really do anything about it. Between the low blood oxygen levels and the bone-destroying effects of long-term steroids to help with the lung inflammation, he became an old, stooped man. He said that one day he saw his reflection in a store window on Broad Street and couldn’t believe that man was him. When he died early in 2000, the only way I could see him in my mind was as a much younger man.

And that’s the way I remember him today, not as a near invalid but as an active, vigorous, happy man of late middle age. I miss him a lot.

This would have been his 96^th birthday.