Monday, May 02, 2005

Papa

I have been down in North Augusta for the past week to be with family as we got ready fro the memorial service.
It was nice to be there and tell stories of Papa, as well as hear stories that were new to me. Various people have tried to get him to record his life with out success, because Papa didn’t like to just talk about himself. He would just drop little nuggets of information on you as you sat in the garden watching the birds.
We did that all my life, and all my life he would send us to go shoo the Morning Doves and Blue Jays from the feeder. “If you see a Blue Jay, chase them away! They hog all the food and drive my pretty song birds away! You hear me?”
He didn’t like the Morning Doves because they are fat and brown and didn’t sing.
Before this weekend I didn’t know he worked in Steel with his father. Aunt Barbara said that he could catch rivets from the air with a bucket, that he would jump from I beam to I beam as if he was on solid ground. Papa was always fearless when it came to something like that. That he had worked there until an accident where he got pinned between two beams and his hip got crushed. Then he went to work for Eastern Airlines as a plane mechanic- I learned that he joined the air corps because he wanted to fly but that his eyes kept him on the ground. Dad told us stories of fishing for sharks with papa where, after throwing in the Chum (blood and guts to draw the sharks in) and sitting in the boat all day Papa would jump in the water (oh, don’t worry it was on the opposite side as the chum, honestly! The water is fine, come on in!) and cool off. Dad never did, he had a healthy respect for things bigger than he was- like Aunt Barbara. (At least for a few years anyway).
He would dig up Sand Crabs for us to look at when we went to the beach. He taught me to body surf, and that it is always the out of state people who drowned.
He yelled at me when I wouldn’t give him is screw driver back (I was two. I won).
He taught me how to grow things, how to dive, how to be so stubborn I would cut my nose off to spite my face!
Dad said I was the grandchild who butted heads with him the most- I replied that must mean I was the most like him.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Oh, yes indeed! Dad