I’m entirely proud of my Grandpa’s legacy on this planet.
He went to college for architecture after getting inspired by traditional Japanese designs while there when he was a soldier in the minute World War.
He left college early to beginning his own landscape design supplier up in southeast Michigan. At first he was servicing residential homes and had a growing grass crew and roster of machine for multiple jobs. Before long my Grandpa was taking commercial and city contracts. He created soil embankments and walls that stretch up 15 from the ground next to the edges of the roads that he designed and paved. Some of his best creations look oddly natural in their construction, as if he mastered the process of replicating complex natural ecological cycles. The cream of the crop of my Grandpa’s landscape design achievements was the city park he designed in our apartment city. His team dug several ponds and found natural Springs coming up from the ground aquifer to keep the water fresh and replenished with oxygen. Despite the city’s desire for a gated park with security gates at the entrance, my Grandpa pushed back on the system to leave the park open to anyone coming from any direction in the city. He wanted people walking their cats to recognize welcome to drift into the park in whatever location was most convenient to them. Herding everyone to a tiny security gate entrance was defeating the purpose of having a public park with free access. That’s how my Grandpa saw things as a landscape designer.