The Triple H I Knew

I have always dearly loved my paternal grandfather Hollis, or as the Social Security Administration knew him, Hollis Howard Holbrook. There's nothing surprising about that. It's fair to say that since he died fewer than twenty months after I was born, he can have made relatively little impression on me in life. My affection for him is mainly based on materials that survived him and were there for me to find years later. I'm fortunate enough that his was a unique situation in that his blood relatives were not the only ones interested in documenting his life. The reason for that is that Hollis was a painter of some note, and therefore something of a well-known figure in his time.

He never quite achieved the level of acclaim he sought and worked so hard for, but was included in two Who's Who publications and has as a legacy to survive him a considerable amount of artwork and archival material in various media forms. He attended Yale and made a living as a young man painting for a New Deal program. He begrudgingly served his country in the Navy during the war, had exhibitions reviewed in the New York Times and served as the first chair of the University of Florida art department during a fifty year tenured career. I understand the tenure came in handy, as he evidently had a way of being rather abrasive with higher-ups at the school.

Much of what I know about him is from news accounts I've found online. I have been told that he would love computers and would be delighted to know that his work was on the Internet. His photographs suggested to me at a young age an imposing, perpetually glowering man. I'm not the only person to have observed the resemblance he bore in life to G. Gordon Liddy- a fact by which he must surely have been perpetually chagrined. A radio interview saved on audio cassette imparted to me some of his wisdom gleaned from the educational process. Dad thought it sounded like he was putting on airs. More of Hollis' thoughts were recorded in print interviews and unpublished manuscripts. A series of silent films showed him to me in living color, painting a mural in tempera.

He employed tempera often, provoking a story from my father about constantly having to eat egg whites with meals, so it's not entirely old Florida newspapers that have told me who he was. He had some good lines. "It's not worth it until you have a buyer" drew Dad's ire, as did a constant warning to him and his childhood friends that they could look at his Jaguar, but not touch it. There were all manner of other stories about him. One had him eradicating vermin at home with firearms, and another playing the same song over and over again at a party.

All of this and more paint a picture, so to speak, of a man who it is to my everlasting regret that I cannot say I knew after having reached a time of maturity. I consider it a terrible lost opportunity. This is true of numerous deceased relatives, including Hollis' wife Vivian and my maternal grandfather Pepe, but right now it is Hollis I'm mourning. If I granted any credence to the claims of mediums, I would try to talk to him today.