In America, being serious is often seen as being aloof, my old man said, once, years ago, when he was talking about his father, my Grandpa Means, who was quiet most of the time, reticent in a Midwestern way, or so I thought, think. The old man was sitting on the dock, holding the cork handle of an old fishing rod, raising the tip high to test the line from time to time, smoking his pipe and looking out at the red-and-white plastic bobber in the water, which was thin and glazed with a cruel, late-day sunlight. He was…