ROCK ISLAND, IL—Taking a moment to reflect on treasured memories of their recently deceased family patriarch, grandchildren of the late Ronald Gorden reminisced Tuesday about how their grandfather was always there to mess up stuff their grandma had just cleaned. “If there’s one thing you could say about Grandpa, it’s that he was continually tracking mud across Grandma’s freshly mopped floor or leaving sticky handprints on recently wiped cabinets,” said Gorden’s adult grandson Peter Bell, fondly recalling long afternoons at his grandparents’ house, where his grandmother would painstakingly clean the kitchen only for his grandpa to leave an open carton of ice cream melting on the counter moments later. “If Grandma had just carefully reorganized a closet, you could bet that Grandpa would be there in moments flat, tearing through the shelves to find some specific hat he hadn’t worn in 30 years. Whether it was getting crumbs on the couch, leaving condensation rings on the coffee table, or balling up scrap paper and throwing it near, but not in, the trash can—that was Grandpa in a nutshell.” At press time, Bell had promised to honor his grandfather’s legacy by going home and messing up things that his own wife had just cleaned.
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