Ryan Hayes Writing Minor

My Grandpa, Charles Baer, has lived what's more of a story than a life.  Chuck is one of few ever to win two BigTen championships in the same year (football and golf).  After college he enlisted into the Army, but he happily served his term coaching football at a military base.  His career started as a floor worker at a steel forgery in Detroit, and my mother's family was poor, struggling to get by.  

 

It was at this moment that my Grandpa remembered a lesson in the only Chemistry class he took in college.  He remembered an experiment where a chemical changed color at a certain temperature, and he wondered why couldn't this be used at a forgery.  Working steel was a skilled and grueling job, requiring exactness and attentiveness to remove the steel at the correct moment.  My grandpa patented this idea along with several other innovations in the steel foundry business.  His success allowed him to open his own foundry in Detroit and Mexico that still is open to this day.

 

My Grandpa isn't someone who would strike you as some Chemistry genius or engineering savant.  He's the epitome of street smarts.  He jokes to me that his coach would make him carry a Cereal box in his book sack to look like he had textbooks and went to class.  I always laugh, realizing that the difference between my Grandpa and those who may have scored better then him is an ability to see problems in a problem-solving lens.  My Grandpa can read a person and a problem like he can read a blitzing defense or a golf green.  

 

I've always understood that about my Grandpa, but I never understood how he accomplished all of these things.  It wasn't until his 80th birthday this past year that I mentioned some struggles I was facing, from my golf game to school work.  Rather than receiving the expected reassuring, supportive response that I was accustomed to hearing, he looked in my eyes before turning away and said, "If you really wanted it, you'd have it."  At that moment I was stunned... but it was the truth. Chuck accomplished things because when wanting was his catalyst for doing.  They were synonymous.

 

It's being the best at whatever you do and achieving more than you can imagine that inspires me.  It's the Grandfather that has paved the way of excellence that inspires me.  It's the dream that I can be him one day.  That inspires me.