Vick's View

My Papa

Posted

My grandfather was an incredible man. He has been dead for almost 45 years, but I think of him all the time.

It’s amazing to me that when you think you know all the stories about your family, you find out you don’t. New stories emerge and it is shocking when you realize you had never heard of these episodes.

My Papa was so special to me. He let me play in his toolbox every time we came to visit. We would come down from New York or Pennsylvania and stay with him and Granny for a week in the summer and at Christmas.

I remember Papa letting me ride in his truck as I sat between him and daddy. We went to a store one day, but as we were leaving, I saw the coolest thing ever… flip flops. I wanted them so much and I begged and begged daddy to buy me a pair. He refused, saying that it would hurt between my toes, and I wouldn’t wear them after one day. But I pleaded and pleaded until I distinctly remember my Papa saying that he would buy them for me.

I proudly put them on in the truck and wore them all day, even stubbornly refusing to take them off when blisters emerged between my toes. My Papa snuck me some band aids and off I went.

Once I remember him walking with me in the backyard when I was small and he was singing, “Picking up paw paws and put them in the basket.” He would reach down to the ground and pick up an imaginary object and put it in an imaginary basket while I imitated him the whole time and sang along. But I remember that I couldn’t figure out for the life of me how a Papa would fit in a little basket. It wasn’t until I was half grown that I figured out the song was about paw paws.

I remember sitting next to my Papa in church, his suit coat against my cheek. He would always hand me a pen in an offering envelope so I could draw pictures during the service. And most importantly, he would always reach in his pocket and pull out a roll of Certs breath mints and give me one. I felt so warm and loved.

When I was a teenager, I learned that when my daddy was about five years old, his parents, my Papa and my Granny, had contracted tuberculosis and had to go to a sanitarium while my daddy moved in with his grandparents. It was a tough time for everyone, and knowing my Papa, it had to have been very traumatic.

My Papa had a stroke and was paralyzed on one side. Refusing to give up, he rehabilitated himself by having someone tie 3 ropes to a doorknob. He steadily worked harder and harder to braid and unbraid those 3 ropes until he regained strength of his paralyzed arm.

When I was a little older, I heard him teasing my grandmother. Evidently, he had hitchhiked in his younger years to Chicago to see Faye Ray do a fan dance at a burlesque club. I think she was still mad at him.

But it wasn’t until I was in my 60s that I found out my grandfather was almost murdered.

When he was first married and way before he became the housing director for Georgia Tech where he would ultimately retire, he drove a taxi throughout Atlanta. One night he picked up two men who put a gun to his head and made him drive out of the city limits to an unpopulated area.

They robbed him of his money, tied him up and shoved him down an embankment. One of the robbers pointed the gun at my grandfather’s head and pulled the trigger.

But nothing happened. The gun jammed, and at that time headlights could be seen in the distance, so the robbers quickly stole the taxi and drove off.

My Papa worked to get himself almost in the roadway so he could be seen. Thankfully, the headlights belonged to a police officer who had been out on patrol and come to this deserted area for a “bathroom break”. My Papa survived the ordeal, and the robbers went on to commit more crimes in Macon.

Had I known about this incident when he was alive, I might have held on to him a little tighter and a little longer.

After my Papa retired, he’d become a minister. He pastored a little church near his home, and before my grandfather passed away, he officiated at my wedding along with my dad. It was so funny…he was a nervous wreck. But my greatest memory is at my wedding when my new husband and I kneeled down at the kneeling bench. The white satin covered bench had a padded ledge across the top for use as a hand railing. I remember that I put my right hand on the white satin, my new husband put his hand over mine, my daddy reached over and put his hand on my husband’s, and my grandfather reached over and put his hand on my dad’s. During the prayer song, I opened my eyes and took in the beauty of the three generations joined together at one special moment in time.

It’s one of the most precious memories of my life.

So today, hold on to those you love a little longer and a little tighter. Make a precious memory.