My grandfather, Clarence Fieberg, was in the trades for all of his adult life. He worked up the ranks at McNulty Construction Company, eventually earning a role as a vice president.

This is my grandfather, whom we called “Pop-pop,” along with his wife, Gladys, her mother, Maud, my mom, and her six children. That’s me in front, threatening to shoot the photographer (my dad).

Among its projects, McNulty Construction helped build the Pentagon in the early 1940s. Pop-pop commuted by train for months as he worked on the Pentagon project.

One day, his boss told Pop-pop that the firm had won another large project bid in the Washington, D.C. area, and that it would be a multi-year commitment. Pop-pop talked things over with my grandmother, and they decided to move to Washington so that they would be together.

They went ahead with a few suitcases, leaving the rest of their belongings to be loaded onto a moving truck. They had barely arrived in Washington when Pop-pop was offered a kickback from someone related to the new project. He refused it, and when he was told, “that’s the way things work around here,” he reported the incident to his boss at McNulty. “McNulty Construction doesn’t take bribes,” his boss affirmed.

Pop-pop called the movers back in Chicago and told them to stop loading the truck. McNulty Construction pulled out of the project, and Pop-pop returned home.

I remember feeling very proud of Pop-pop years ago when he told that true story to me and my siblings. He spoke matter-of-factly, as though it was understood that honesty was not something to compromise.

I wish that I remained forever unsoiled by the attitude that “it’s the way that things are done around here.” But I eventually became jaded growing up in Chicago, and reading numerous newspaper accounts of widespread graft, favoritism and an apparent lack of accountability for wrongdoing. It wasn’t just in the newspapers, it was in companies where I worked, among people who worked alongside me, or were in management positions.

The attitude that “right doesn’t matter, getting your way does,” even reared its ugly head in the youth sports in which I coached and in which my kids participated. Many people had a great perspective–that sports was a way to teach the values of honest work, determination, and discipline. But it seemed like there would always be a few coaches or parents on the sidelines, dragging down the team with ways to “play the system” or complain about fair calls that didn’t go their way.

Anyway, I thought about Pop-pop and McNulty Construction recently when I shooed the dishonest tradesman out of my home (read Part One of this post for the background). I’m not “Ivory Soap pure” by any stretch of the imagination, but every once in a while, I can do the hard thing, the right thing, that let’s me feel good about looking at myself in the mirror.

Sometimes, I guess I see part of Pop-pop looking back.