Mark Twain has commonly been misattributed with a quote that I believe encapsulates the parallels my maternal grandfather and I have lived through. “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.”
Most of times when history’s cyclical nature is brought up, it is used to explain how people haven’t learned from the issues of the past. For me, it shows some happy coincidences and a possible road map of success for the future.
Willie Louis Arnold and Myles Aaron Arnold Dunson’s births are separated by over 60 years. The former was born a few months after World War II started, while the latter was born less than two weeks after the War on Terror started.
While we were both raised in a world at war, we were sheltered by living in large black communities in the South. I was born in Nashville, TN, to a mother and father who were heavily involved with the HBCU culture in the city. My grandfather was born in Newnan, GA, during the height of the Jim Crow South.
During my high school years, my family relocated to Marietta, GA, a town a little over 50 miles away from where my grandfather attended his secondary school. My grandfather and I were both student-athletes who focused on football. During our senior years, we both had aspirations of continuing our playing careers into college.
In 1958, one of my grandfather’s coaches tried to get him to play for his alma mater, Fort Valley State. 60 years later, in 2018, one of my coaches did the same for me as he contacted his alma mater, Sewanee: The University of the South.
We both gave up our gridiron dreams, but we continued to love the sport. My grandfather and I both love the NFL, and during the late 2000s to mid 2010s, we were both huge Detroit Lions fans because of a family member who played for the team.
In our mid-20s, we both worked in the city of Atlanta. On my way to work at my writing job, I drove down the same roads that my grandfather hauled lumber on as a young man more than half a century prior.
Around this pivotal moment in our young adult lives, my grandfather and I have the same epiphany decades apart. “I was thinking about moving,” my grandfather said. “Because I wasn’t content with the job I had. I always wanted to go higher and higher.”This was the same sentiment I had working as a staff writer in Atlanta at a paper that was not using my sports writing knowledge.
So we decided that the South might not be the place for us to grow into the men we were meant to be.
In 1966, my grandfather packed his bags and moved up north to the big city of Dayton, OH, to find a way to make a living. In 2026, I repacked my bags and returned out west to the big city of Phoenix, AZ, to continue my pursuit of becoming a great sports journalist.
This is where my grandfather and I’s parallels end, as he was 26 years old when he found his calling to become one of the first Black police wardens in Montgomery County, OH. Later on in Dayton, he meets the love of his life and settles down, while also climbing the corporate ladder.
As the decades pass he worked his way up to Lieutenant, Captain, Chief, and finally Superintendent, where he became not only the first Black man, but also the first individual to run the city jail in Dayton, Ohio, and the Dayton Corrections Institution.
From being hired to retiring, Willie Arnold was awarded several times, including an award given to him by the Ohio State Congress, as well as raising two daughters and sending them off to college.
My grandfather really believes in education, as he comes from a family of teachers and professors, so he said that it was important for him to pass that down to his children, and for his children to do the same.
I am living proof of the importance of education in our family by working towards earning my master’s degree at one of the most prestigious journalism schools in the country.
At 24 years old, I am still two years off from finding my dream job as my grandfather did, but if our lives are as connected as they seem to be, then I have a wonderful 60-plus years to look forward to.
