Remembering My Pop On His Birthday

When I was a preschooler (except nobody called us that back then, we were just kids), I stayed with my grandparents all day every day while my mom worked. I don't know when this began, but as far back as I can remember, it was the state of things. I didn't mind it, in fact, I loved it, just figured every kid stayed with their grandparents all day every day while their mom's worked. I always felt loved and welcomed by them. I remember a single incident of a spanking from my grandmother with her soft house shoe because I kept going across the street to play with some neighbors even after she told me not to. I also remember lots of rocking.

My grandfather, we called him Pop, worked all day, too, for a wholesale grocery company about three miles from their house. He would usually already be at work when my mom dropped me off, but he called mid-morning to talk to Grandmother, and almost always to me, too. Occasionally, when Mom and I were running late, she would stop at a bakery close to Grandmother and Pop's house, and get me doughnuts -- which is probably the reason I still love glazed doughnuts above almost all other sweets. These doughnuts, in my memory, were exceptionally good. They always had a little crisp bottom where they had cooled on a wire rack and where the sugar had run down and pooled. These were doughnuts with substance, not the too-soft, doughy confections you find nowadays. These old time doughnuts were just good, and I was always exited about stopping there on the way in the mornings. This would usually be the first thing I said to Pop when he called -- "Mama stopped and got me doughnuts this morning." And he would always say in reply, "Be sure you save me the hole." What he meant was the imaginary hole, the center, back in those days you didn't see fried doughnut holes like you do now. I suspect the bakeries probably put what bits would have been the holes back into the dough to be rolled out and re-cut into actual doughnuts rather than selling holes separately. I never saw doughnut holes for sale until I was an adult.

At noon, we would hear Pop's car arrive in the driveway, and I would hide behind the refrigerator to jump out at him with a "Boo!" when he came in the back door. He would tremble and shake just as if I had scared him to death, just as if we didn't go through this ritual every single solitary day, and then he would hug me and kiss me and take me on his lap for a minute. And I would present him with my empty palm and the "doughnut hole" I had saved for him. He sometimes sang, "Have I Told You Lately That I Love You." I still remember the words to that old song.

At this time, mid-1950s, Pop would have only been in his 40s, but he seemed so old to me. He always wore a white shirt and modest tie, a Silverbelly hat, lace-up wingtips. He was of that time period. He loved his family, he loved Tennessee Ernie Ford, Gunsmoke, he loved God, and was a lay Baptist preacher. In World War II he drove landing craft for the Navy in the Pacific theater. After the war, when he went to work for the grocery company, he taught himself to speak Spanish so he could talk to the men in the shipping department. He could play the French harp. He kept a roll of wintergreen Lifesavers in his desk drawer, a roll of Lifesavers I sometimes robbed when I thought he wouldn't notice. He never said a word about my thievery. He was three years younger than my grandmother, a fact which she hid from everybody all their married life. He was my Pop and I adored him then, later, and still.

After lunch (we called it dinner) was done, while Grandmother washed dishes and I colored at the kitchen table, Pop laid down to take a quick nap. He was a snorer and the walls of that wooden house would shake he snored so loud. After about twenty minutes, Grandmother would send me in to awaken him. I would open the door and say in a stage whisper, "Pop. You've got to go back to work now. It's time to wake up." And he would say, "I'm not sleeping, I'm just resting my eyes." No matter the window-rattling snores that had just ended. I think he had it in his mind that it was somehow wrong to take an actual nap in the middle of the day.

In January 1992, Pop and I met for lunch. He went to the same cafe for lunch every day, managed by one of his nephews. They all called him by his name. They showed us to his regular table. They knew he wanted sweet tea. I don't remember what we ate for our meal, but we split a piece of apple pie, and then we went back to his house. This was not the same house where I had stayed as a little girl, but was a much more modern, comfortable house that he had bought for my grandmother a few years before she died. We sat in the den and talked about my writing. We talked about history. I was surprised by how much he knew about some of the historical characters from Texas history and the Old West. He gave me a book which I still have, GUN IN POCKET, BIBLE IN HAND. We discussed religion. Pop was still giving sermons at a nursing home then, but didn't have his own church anymore. Some of his views surprised me coming from him. He was not as close-minded as some of the so-called religious people I hear spouting their rigorous ideas now. He gave me a bracelet that had belonged to my grandmother. I still have it and cherish it.

Two weeks later, Pop got up one morning to prepare himself for the day. He was in the bathroom shaving when a massive heart attack or a stroke struck him down. My aunt and uncle found him mid-morning lying on the floor. We were all in shock. I had just spent that great day with him. I'm glad we had that time.

Happy Birthday, Pop. You would be 98 years old today. I love and miss you, still.

Onward ....