It's The Little Things

My granddad's name was Francis Xorbie (pronounced zorbie) Miller. Throughout his younger years, he was called Xorbie, but he never liked it, and when he became an adult, he usually went by Francis. When Granddad was little, his friends called him "Soap" because they had trouble saying Xorbie. Soap was a nickname he was stuck with in grade school. Granddad told me that story when I was 12 or 13. He was retired and living in Canon City, Colo., but he and Grandma pulled their travel trailer to Greensburg during the fall so he could watch me play football and we could hunt pheasants together. He told me the story about his nickname when we were driving the sandy roads south of Haviland, hunting pheasants. Granddad was born in Wellsford and farmed south of Haviland for many years. He told stories about the people who lived on the land in the thirties and forties, pointing to an abandoned farmstead and saying a name, and he usually had a funny story about them. I know we walked lots of fields, got cold and hungry, and maybe even saw some pheasants, but I can remember Granddad's stories as if I'd heard them yesterday. I dearly loved Granddad, and I think part of why I hunt today is to be close to him. And, by the way, I think Xorbie is a pretty cool name.