Wayman H. Lytle

Well, maybe I just want to save the ‘water faerie’ a trip!” he said, and I replied, “Well, then maybe the ‘weeding faerie’ just finished the front islands.” My granddad and I bicker to no end, but he seems to always be there for me. He is so comical, even through some of the most serious matters. I know a kind reproach and correction are always waiting when I do something wrong, because that is just his nature. He is a man who firmly believes that all things have a place where they belong, and that everything has a certain way of being done. When I put something in the wrong place, or start doing something the wrong way, that will be the last time I do it. His life has left him in a position where he is content to simply pass on the lessons that he has learned.

“I’ll tell you, if one thing ever makes you comes across as uncouth, it is bad table manners!” Wayman Horace Lytle grew up in a poor southern city in South Carolina, one of six children, and this probably contributes to his great thriftiness. Of his senior class, only one other person went to college, and he will never stop saying that a college education is the best decision he made in his life. He joined the army in 1943 because of their retirement benefits and scholarships and was deployed at the end of World War 2; and he also served in the Vietnam War during 1950-2. He lived overseas and traveled widely with my mother and grandmother. I feel that his life has also given him a key set of ethical values that are often lost in today’s secular world. Just a few of these include hard word, thriftiness, perfect manners, and amiability.

One of Granddad’s ethical values is relationships; he will never abuse or even disrespect a relationship. When faced with stress, unnecessary hassle or plain bad luck, a stronger, more violent side of him comes out, that when compared to the normal gentle personality I am used to, resembles more of an angry grizzly bear. Granddad’s value for relationships is surpassed by his care for his family. The way that he provides and nurtures us is an example of this. Organization has such a key value in his life that I think he applies it to other areas of his life, specifically other the un-materialistic ones. Another lesson he keeps teaching me is that you need to know your family, because there will be a time that they are not here, and you miss not knowing about how they grew up, where they grew up, and what was important to them. My Granddad is my hero, because he lived and lives an exemplary life that I feel I would do well to learn from and implement parts of it in my own life. He would disagree though, saying, “You’re a good man, Charlie Brown.” To which I always answer, “Who is Charlie Brown?” and he’ll say, “Never you mind, get back to work.”