We have 13 grandchildren ranging in age from 23 to 1.  Sometimes that realization still shocks me – that we are the grandparents. Not the kids, not even the parents, but the grandparents. That role  should be played by my mother or Paul’s mom and dad. But in truth, they are gone and the roles have been re-cast. The grandparenting has fallen to us.

So maybe it’s time to explain exactly how Paul became The Colonel. 

Over twenty years ago we were having dinner with our oldest son Sean and his wife Marge.  We visited about this and that through the salad and the main course and then came the reason for the invitation: “What do you want the grandkids to call you?” We were going to be grandparents!!!! Obviously we were over-the-moon excited. The speed with which we delivered our answers reflects our personalities. I blurted out as though I had been thinking about this forever and was just waiting for the opportunity to share it (which of course was true) “NANA! I want to be called Nana!!”   Paul said, “I’ll have to think about it and get back to you.”

But he couldn’t decide. My nephew, who had been a grandparent for a couple of years already, went by Papa Nick which I always thought was kind of cool. I suggested Papa Paul. He rolled his eyes. “That sounds like I should wear a beret and have a cigarette holder.” Clearly that was not going to happen. “Well, there’s always Grandpa.” Nope. That wasn’t an option either.

My sister Lila was married to a man named Tony. But he never went by Tony. Lila called him Slim and his kids all called him Snads. The Slim I got. Snads? Who knows? But Paul liked it.   Then there were our friends, Julius and Audrey. Audrey’s Dad went by Chief. His kids called him The Chief  and his grandkids called him The Chief. And Paul really liked that one. A lot. I think he actually wanted to be called The Chief  but that  was taken. So somehow he settled on The Colonel. I’m not sure where it came from, but that’s what he decided. And now – a dozen grandchildren later –  he is, indisputably and without a doubt,  The Colonel. You will understand when I say that, along the way,  this has created some interesting moments and some “issues”.

1. Here’s the first problem. Sean was in the Marine Corps for four years. Then he got out, went into the business world, got married, and had three kids. When Paul chose The Colonel as his name, he had no idea that Sean would re-enlist and be a  Marine for the next 20 years. That we would be spending a lot of time on military bases. See where I’m going with this? It got a little awkward to be walking around a  military base with a four old who is yelling at the top of his lungs, “Colonel! Colonel! Wait for me!” and watch all the young privates suffering whiplash from spinning around in circles looking for the officer they were supposed to salute.

2. When he chose the name, I’m sure he wasn’t thinking about a toddler’s vocabulary and how, when they are asked to pronounce a word that is unfamiliar to them, they will replace it with a similar sounding word that they recognize. Thus “Colonel”  became “Turtle” for Jackson, the first born grandchild, and if our own kids had had anything to do with it, it would have stuck.

But to his credit, he held the line and by the time the next one came along, Turtle was in the rear-view mirror, and he was firmly entrenched as The Colonel.  Ezra calls him Kerkel – but he is outnumbered by the seven older ones so I doubt it will gain any traction. If you can get them going in the right direction, the  ones down the line just sort of seem to fall into step.

3. When he said he would be The Colonel I asked him what he was going to say when these kids grew up and asked him what war he fought in. “I’m going to tell them ‘you have no idea how many battles I’ve fought’.” Fair enough.  After 40 years in ministry, I couldn’t really argue with that.

4.. But then there is. Nana and the Colonel sounds like a sit-com.  Am I right?  You can just hear the voice over now. “Next week on Nana and the Colonel.. . .”

But it is what it is and now all the bigs are used to it and the littles don’t know him as anything else and so Colonel  it is. They could not love him any more if he were a General.