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Austin Smith
Professor Lynn Raymond
UWRT 1103
September 30, 2015
Writing Prompt 4
My grandfather on my mothers side of the family was a very
interesting person. His name was James Thomas Vines. From old pictures of
him, he appears to look very much like my younger brother. He was tall, slim,
and had light brown hair. He lived in Arkansas for most of his life with his
mother, father, and 3 brothers. His brothers said that they all went hunting
together very often, and that they always had to be doing something
outside. He was a rather rambunctious type, or so I heard from his brothers.
He got in to trouble quite a bit, as most teenagers tend to do.
After he finished high school, he was drafted into the military during
the time of the war in Vietnam. Although he was drafted during the war, he
was never sent overseas to fight. He was stationed in Panama at that time.
While he was in Panama, he met a nurse that he took quite a liking to. It
wasnt long until they fell in love with each other, and at the end of his
deployment he proposed to her and asked if she would return to the U.S.
with him. She agreed and they began a family in Arkansas, a little ways
outside of El Dorado. They had four children, two boys and two girls. The

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boys were named Eddie and James, and the two girls, who were twins, were
named Genie and Janie (which Im told got quite confusing at times).
My grandfather got a job at the hospital in El Dorado as a security
officer. It wasnt the highest paying job in the world, and money was quite
tight due to the fact that they had four children to raise off of only that one
paycheck. My mother, Janie, told me about how tight they were at time and
how she didnt get to do many of the things she would have liked to do when
they were younger. She said that her first car was an old Pinto that she had
to share with her sister. She said that the car had a manual transmission that
was about to go out and holes in the floorboard that you could put your feet
through and touch the pavement. Even with the tight restrictions on money,
they still all managed to make it. The sons both got a job directly after high
school and did not attend college. Both of his daughters went to nursing
school after high school, which I suppose may have been influenced by their
mother a bit.
After all of the children were out of the house they remained in
Arkansas, where most of my grandfathers relatives were and still are today.
After some time, my grandfather suffered from a stroke and was hospitalized
as a result. After a few months, he was out of the hospital, but he had to use
a wheelchair and walker to get around. He was never really quite the same
after the stroke as he was before, it almost seemed like all of the joy and
happiness had simply been removed from him and he just didnt have any
fight left. A year later, he contracted pneumonia and just couldnt fight it off.

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That was the end of his story, but his legacy has lived on through his
children.