This is my grandfather, James Allen Hardesty. He’s always been “Ba” to me. He, my father, my son, and I all share the same middle name.

Behind his gentle face and soft spoken voice, there’s a man with unwavering character that has stood the test of time.

They say hard times create strong men, and with my grandpa, I believe it.

At 13 years old, his mother walked out on their large family of 11 children and his father went blind, leaving him and a sister to take care of most of the others with hardly any money. He and his sister Patty would often go around picking up pop bottles to sell for extra cash.

At 13 years old he had to learn to drive, which landed many tickets with the local police department, but that was what he had to do to support his family. At a young age he worked newspaper routes and eventually landed a job washing dishes for Winston’s Motel making 21 cents an hour and getting supper. It’s still out there on highway 412.

In my grandpa’s junior year of high school, he dropped out to work at a gas station because the school faculty told him he’d never make it anywhere in life. After working there for a while, he saw that without an education he really wouldn’t get very far. He went back to school and finished to get his diploma.

He met my grandma when they were young children, but she knew at 14 years old she would marry him. He became great friends with her brothers and those boys would constantly be out on adventures and sometimes would find their fun by making some hotrods and drag racing through the streets.

One night racing on I-40 at about 120 mph, they got into a bit of a fight with a rival racer after crashing into one another. There were a lot of crazy things about my grandpa that I never would’ve guessed to be true.

A story often told and fondly remembered is the day after my grandma and grandpa’s honeymoon. It was a Sunday morning and they wanted to take their brothers and sisters to church so the big deal of it all is them coming to church with “Just married” written on their car and having all of those kids come out with them. I wonder what the passersby thought of that!

At age 23, he had been drafted to the army. He had only been married for three years so it was a hard adjustment for him and my grandma. He was stationed at Fort Lee in late 1961. He had many adventures up and down the east coast while serving.

Times were different back then and racism was rampant. At the University of Alabama, Governor Wallace was trying to keep out African American students from entering the school. My grandfather was sent out to defy Governor Wallace’s attempt to keep segregation alive.

Around that same time, my grandpa and some of his army buddies went to a restaurant for some burgers. Some of his friends with him were people of color and they were not welcomed to the establishment. After that, they decided that if their friends and fellow Americans couldn’t be served, then they wouldn’t be served either. They promptly left and never went back.

After serving his country, he came back to get a job at Tulsa Wench. He became the first person to run a CNC machining center there. It could do 14 operations in one shop. He worked there 24 years.

He then got into aircraft work at Chemtronics and worked there for 10 years before retiring. After 6 years of retirement, he helped my dad with his small business in welder repairs.

At the time of writing this, my grandparents have been married for 62 years and I’ve never seen or heard of an argument between them. They really are best friends and give a great example of how a marriage should work.

My grandpa is a very humble person, so getting this information I can’t help but think he’s being at least a little mischievous in hiding some of the greatness of his so called “long, boring life.” He’s a great man and I’m very thankful for the time spent with him.

My grandpa has been described as tough but fair, funny, gentle, quiet, respectful, and peaceful. These words are nice, but I don’t think words could really perfectly describe him. You’d have to know this man to get a sense of who he really is, but I can assure you, he is a man of strong character.

He still gets around just fine at 82 years old and just a few years ago I saw him jumping in a bouncy house at my little cousin’s birthday party.

He’s a great teacher and story teller and he often tells me that we don’t have to do things. We get to do things. I didn’t quite appreciate hearing that at first because we were usually talking about school and homework, but now I think I know what he means.

With the mess that 2020 has been, it’s been more and more evident to me just how precious each second is and I’ve been extremely blessed to learn from a man like my grandpa.

At the closing of this story, I’m not sure how to end it, but he reminded me that the story isn’t over yet and he very well may do something else before too long.

We hope you’ve enjoyed this story. Be sure to treasure each second you have with your loved ones and always, always, always be looking to learn.

Thank you Ba!