My grandfather almost snuck all the way through to 100 full years playing the game of life. He was stopped just short last Tuesday at 99 and a half, and in full sportswriter parlance that actually feels like a sizeable upset. 

He'd previously been pretty good, both in regulation and in his ridiculous amount of personal overtime. At his 96th birthday dinner, one of his daughters caught him trying to use a kiddie cup to sneak the rest of his margarita out of the local Mexican restaurant.  Wasteful he was not. 

Let's actually go with an asterisk here; that to-go cup incident could have happened at his 97th. Nobody I asked in the family could fully remember, and most of us get that night confused with the other semi-recent birthday dinner that ended with the police coming over to follow up on a report of his credit card being stolen. The card was soon found in the pocket of my grandpa's pants, the likely culprit and source of confusion being a similar margarita. 

He did not die angry, thirsty or without having told his stories. And there were a shit ton of them.

Ted Gaynor was born September 22, 1922, with absolutely nothing. He went on to live a fuller, wilder and obviously lengthier life than he ever could have imagined. Even if some of his stories were eventually overimagined. 

To say he had both a story and a one-liner for everything would be to ignore the two or three additional quips he had on just about everything. His was a fascinating and wildly entertaining trip through the generations -- and around the world, really. He'd been there, done that, joked about it, slept it off, gone back and talked about it some more. He was giving, grateful and on top of just about everything. My brother and I got to see him last Thursday, and though he was too tired to say much, he was listening to every word my mom said -- and mocking her when he didn't agree. 

My brother and I each fist-bumped him on our way out. We both knew -- and he did, too -- but nobody cried or said too much. How could we walk out of that hospital anything but grateful? 

Our grandpa was an artillery man in Europe in World War II, then worked his way all the way up from the print shop at Firestone to a big shot's role as a sales and advertising executive. He was paid to write one-liners and deliver them in his travels to places like the World Series, the Indy 500 and all the biggest bowling and golf events. 

A few stories from his childhood in Marietta have stuck with me. His family often was too poor to have heat in the winters, and for decades into adulthood his feet would still get numbingly cold. He had a couple of used baseballs as a kid, but only after he and his friends would venture deep in the woods to rescue foul balls those who had hit them deemed lost. We primarily talked sports, of course, and he shared memories of listening to big prize fights in the middle of the street with his neighbors. One person had a radio, and the rest gathered around. 

He went from there to war, to college, to bars and pool halls (we heard ALL the stories), to the print shop and other crap jobs to eventually wining and dining customers at MLB All-Star Games and playing some of the world's fanciest golf courses. He proudly showed off what might have been the world's ugliest golf swing, which he gleefully compared to an octopus falling out of a tree. He generally hit 'em straight, and with help of military-grade rec specs and selfless friends, he was still hitting them on occasion as recently as last summer. 

As the oldest grandson, I was the first to get a golf lesson from him. It was the summer of 1990, I believe. My grandpa enjoyed the challenge of golf and really enjoyed the camaraderie the course provided. I really enjoyed lunch on the way home. 

He retired from Firestone before any of his four other grandsons were born. As part of his retirement, his co-workers mocked up a ceremonial Akron Beacon Journal front page to celebrate his accomplishments and his wit. That framed paper has been hanging in his basement since the day he brought it home. In September of 2020, just before his 98th birthday, the Beacon Journal gave him some real space via a column by Bob Dyer headlined "At almost 98, he's still hitting the links." In it, my grandpa talked everything from three-putts at Firestone Country Club to his worldwide travels to his long life in the house he and my grandmother bought in 1953. 

It's not that the 800 words of that Beacon column summed up his whole life. It's not like I can really do that here with 2,000 or so words, either. But if you knew Ted Gaynor, you knew what both what really made him giggle and what kept him going. 

Once the octopus falling out of a tree line made it to print, I truly felt like his work here was done. All that personal overtime became bonus time. 

It was probably 10 years ago during the family Christmas Eve gathering when he delivered another of his most famous lines. Some meaningless bowl game was on in the background, and there was a lull in the conversation at the exact time the broadcast went from the game action to a commercial for Viagra or some other performance enhancer. The room was quiet as the commercial narrator delivered the important disclaimer about users experiencing an erection lasting four hours or more needing to seek medical treatment. 

"If I ever get an erection lasting four hours, I'm not calling a doctor," my grandpa announced to the living room. "I'm calling the Beacon Journal." 

A couple months ago, my mom actually did call the Beacon Journal. With her parents' eyesight failing, she canceled the newspaper subscription they'd had for 68 years. Yes, 68. All to the same address, all registered under the same phone number. 

My grandpa will make the Beacon Journal one last time this weekend with his obituary, the one he always wanted me to write. It's actually online now, but it was mostly constructed by the family's best writer, my mom. It's succinct, it's heartfelt and it stays between the lines in a way my grandpa often did not. That's why I had to do this, because both his best lines and his most predictable jokes are going to live forever. Many of them are too good not to share. Some of them were, well, a tad bit vulgar. 

In the newspaper obit, it accurately says his grandsons "loved when he busted out the inappropriate jokes when they came of age." It does not say that 10 or 11 was the age.

We once had a larger than usual dinner group at the Ido, an iconic Akron restaurant that's probably been around almost as long as he was. When it came time to order, there were about seven consecutive salads of some sort ordered before the waitress came to my grandpa, who ordered the Polish spaghetti both because that's what he wanted and because he wanted to be able to tell the waitress that at his age, he'd earned the right to skip the salad. But the full truth is that he also knew that would be his bridge to telling the table a bunch of Polish jokes, which would be a bridge to him telling a bunch of Italian jokes, and once he got to that second Dry Manhattan and really got rolling, who knows what jokes might follow. 

Whether you were short or tall, Catholic or had never been to church, he had a joke for you. And about you. He was an equal opportunity offender whose intent was never to offend at all.  

Per his wishes, there will be no formal services. He always preferred to be the setup man and not the honoree. I was maybe seven years old when he served as the presenter for my great uncle at the Wayne County Sports Hall of Fame Banquet. He stepped up to the podium and said he appreciated some of his accomplishments being noted, but he said the emcee had forgotten to mention his two letters in football at Marietta High: one from the coach telling him he'd been cut from the team, and another asking him to come back and turn in his equipment. 

He loved an audience. He relished having one, too. He loved talking about the famous people he'd encountered in his travels and work dealings. He loved being a local celebrity at Spring Hills Golf Course and sharing the same stories and one-liners, over and over again. He'd tell big-swinging young golfers to "slow it down to a blur." If you sailed an eight-foot putt six feet past the hole, he'd call it an "AMF" and sort of wait there, almost begging you to ask what an AMFer was. 

Then he'd just smile and say it: "Adios, mother fucker." My brother especially loved that one. 

To best honor his memory, you could donate a few bucks towards kids' sports in Barberton or Manchester. Or maybe you could pack up the old golf equipment that's in your garage or basement and donate it to kids. Or, the next time you're out at a local establishment, you could saddle up next to an older person and just listen for a few minutes. 

Seven or eight years ago, my grandpa started the Christmas dinner by telling us he knew Jesus wasn't born in Barberton because he'd lived in Barberton for nearly 70 years and never met three wise men or a virgin. That was his C-list material, honestly, and it was one of many we really should have seen coming. But we laughed. And we remembered. He loved to tell me and my brother, "Hey! I got a new one for you!" A few feet away, my grandma would grumble, "Yes, new in 1972." 

They were six weeks away from their 76th wedding anniversary. Live, laugh and love, right? He did a hell of a lot of all three. 

This week we're sad, but we're also laughing and celebrating. Tomorrow I'm going to go over and get the only thing I ever wanted when he was gone a picture that hung in the back room for as long as I can remember, the one of the kid who grew up with no heat standing next to Jack Nicklaus at Firestone Country Club. There weren't many stories we didn't already know, and with all this bonus time he'd had his affairs (and the hats and pants he'd been wearing since 1986) in order. But I did find out one thing when I talked to my mom Tuesday night that I didn't know, one that sums him up well. 

He went and paid for his own cremation. In 1993. He ordered the absolute cheapest vinyl urn available, of course, then he drove out of that parking lot at 22 MPH and went almost another 30 years playing golf, buying dinner and telling jokes. Remarkable, as so much of his story is. 

About the only time I ever -- and I mean EVER -- saw my grandpa doing anything but smiling and telling jokes in any setting was at the funeral of my great uncle Frank, long my grandpa's best friend. He got up to the mic in that tiny funeral home and didn't talk about his two football letters or the short list of Italian war heroes. He broke down crying, letting it all out, sharing his gratitude for Frank and his feelings. It's something that stuck with me, then and all the way through this double and triple bonus time for Ted Gaynor. We're sad this week, and we're gonna be a little sad next week, too. Twice I've cried all over this stupid computer screen while finishing this. But I had to share all this, and I had to pour a drink while I wrote, and I had to make sure all the Beacon Journal references and all the vague offensive joke references made this tribute, because I'm here to paint a picture. 

A full picture of a completely full life. And toast, I guess, to a guy who gave a bunch of them and never made much of anything about himself. One more virtual fist bump to show gratitude and share your everlasting gifts with a little corner of the world. Very few who ever met Ted Gaynor ever forgot him, and we won't either. 

Adios, mother fucker. Thank you so much for everything.