Probably the last time I get to tell this story:

My grandfather was Wilford Brimley’s doppelgänger. He’d get approached all the time by people asking if he was Wilford, to which he would say “No, sorry.”

However, most didn’t believe him...
“You’re just saying that, I know it’s you!” was a common refrain.

They’d interrupt him at restaurants, in the middle of meals, anywhere. They stopped him once when he had taken me to Busch Gardens as a kid.

He came up with the only way to deal with it...
He’s tell the truth once. He wasn’t Wilford Brinkley.

If they didn’t believe him, he’d go “ah, you got me” and then sign whatever thing they wanted him to sign (this was pre-selfies). But he’d always sign his real name.

Nobody ever called him on it.
RIP my grandfather, too. A sailor in the Navy who became a paramedic until it mentally destroyed him and then became a soft-spoken carpenter and spectacular father.
You can follow @johnmgennaro.
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