Spring has sprung!

Spring has sprung,
The grass has ris,
I wonder where the flowers is?

This little poem was taught to me by my granddad, one of the greatest men to have ever lived, in my not-so humble opinion.

This post is a just a little tribute to him.

James Havens Word was definitely a renaissance man. He was one of the most devout individuals I have met, but still was soundly in the corner of science. In his early years, living in Austin, TX he was a trouble maker and was constantly getting into trouble. For instance he took a skyrocket and laid into one of the trolly tracks on Congress Ave. and set it off. Well the situation started out fine, but it decided to take a turn for the worse when the rocket careened into the plate glass window of Christian Science Reading Room.

Another story about him was he and his buddies would climb to the top of the inside dome in the Texas Capital and drop a strike-anywhere match wrapped in bubblegum. They would try to get out of the building before the old Civil War vet who was a guard there could catch them. See thing about strike-anywhere matches and bubblegum is that when dropped the friction of the gum against the match when it hits the ground lights the match and creates a bubble in the gum. The bubble eventually pops and in the rotunda of the Capital it would sound like a gun shot.

Granddad claimed to the die he died that if it hadn't been for the Boy Scouts he would have been in the state pen by the time he was 18.

Instead the Scouts got him straightened out and he joined the Marine Corps. He had decided to be a sniper during basic, camping out every free moment on his sergeant's door step. That is until he found out that a Marine sniper had a very short life expectancy. He served his time in the Marines and came home to Texas and started a family. He moved to a small town on the Caprock of Texas called Floydada.

He became the Hartford Insurance man there and took care of the farmers and other residents of the area. The Boy Scouts meant so much to Granddad that he became the Scoutmaster for the local troop, even though he only had daughters and no sons.

He also became well known in the archeology community, with several major finds credited to him. Including Baker Cave in the Devil's River area around Del Rio, TX and his research into the travels of Coronado in the canyons surrounding Floydada. Anybody that has been involved in serious archeology in Texas in the past 50 years probably knows my grandfather, either by reputation or by having the privilege to have worked with him directly.

There are many great stories about my granddad, to many to tell here. He truly was one of the greatest men to have ever walked on this planet. There has only been a few men that have influenced my life to the extent he has. In no particular order, My granddad, my dad, my step-dad Bruce, Jesus Christ, and my drill sergeant, SSG James Ashwood.

Because of my granddad I have my faith, I earned my Eagle Scout largely to his credit, and my desire to learn more about my past can be, at least partially, attributed to him.

As for his question in the poem above?

Here you go granddad,