J. R. Renno
They say the sense of smell is the greatest memory trigger. Its amazing to me how a scent can take you back to a different time and place. I experienced just that this past week on a drive out to Canonsburg, PA for work. Jason and I stopped at Sheetz for a little pick-me-up and I bought a Red Bull energy drink. By the way, in case you didn’t know, Red Bull is my favorite form of liquid sustenance, but that is neither here nor there. The reason I mention the Red Bull is because the top had a distinct smell. It smelled like a house, my grandfather, J. R. Renno’s house.
Intellectually, my grandfather was a mountain of a man. If there was anything you wanted to know about God or the bible, anything, he had most likely written something about it. I used to work on his computer and he would have word documents 600 pages long. No thats not a typo… 600 pages. There are times when I wish I had taken advantage of the wealth of information stored in his head. I was no more that 2 hours away from him at any given point in my life and i barely knew him. Its sad… very sad… and its one of my biggest regrets.
Socially, he was a bit awkward, but no more than any typical man raised Amish, then transplanted into secular society. He would sing songs in German anywhere and everywhere he went. I went on a train ride with him to see Johnstown, PA. He sang to himself most of the way out. Later in his life he would come down to our house for a few days. He would walk around our neighborhood and sing songs to himself. It was his way of worshipping his creator. My sister really got a kick out of his singing. One time she asked him to sing to her and her friends in German, and so he did. After, one of them complimented him on his singing and said it was beautiful. She asked, “what was it that you sang?” With a smile he replied, “how much is that doggy in the window.”
What I remember most about him is his smell. I can’t describe it, but i know what it came from. He loved to use oils. Oils of what I am not sure, but they were very fragrant. The whole house smelled of these oils. You could have blindfolded me as a kid and i could have told you where we were as soon as we were in nose-shot of the house.
You want to know what is the saddest part about all of this. I didn’t realize how much I loved my grandfather until I smelled that Red Bull can. I didn’t realize how much I had missed out on. How much I could have learned from him.
There is so much more I could write about him, but I could never do his memory justice. He was a great man, and he is and will be missed. My only consolation? I’ll see him again someday, in the presence of our Creator.
He is worshipping Him with all his might right now, and probably in German.
