He fathered five children, but my paternal grandfather never knew what to say to his twelve grandchildren. How he managed the small talk required by his career, first as a journalist and later as the alumni relations director at a Jesuit university, continues to baffle me.

Nearly 40 years after his death, my verbal memory of Grandpa Pfau comes down to two sentences, repeated throughout my childhood: "You know what our last name means in German? It means peacock!"

Which of course ensured that I would always think of him while visiting a zoo . . .