A cantankerous, complaining, mischievous, laughing face. He fought and argued, told dirty stories. He was as lecherous as always. Vicious and cruel and impatient, like a frantic child, and the whole structure overlaid with amusement. He drank too much when he could get it, ate too much when it was there, talked too much all the time.
– John Steinbeck
The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 8. The patriarch of the Joad family Grampa Joad is portrayed as lecherous, a teller of dirty stories, cantankerous and mischievous. Exactly the character needed to provide some comic relief in what is a serious novel dealing with a number of weighty themes.