Happy Father's Day

When I was in elementary school, my mother worked until 4:30pm so the school bus would drop me off at the dry cleaners my grandparents owned and operated, and there I stayed until my mom got off work. There, I learned all the finer points of how to search pockets for anything and everything, and how to tell the difference between silver and clad coins, and silver certificates and plain paper money. My job was to search the coins and pick out the pieces that were silver. "Just look at the edge of the coin, and if it's all one silver color, it's a keeper!" And search I did. And find I did! And those lucky coins went into a cardboard box held together on the sides with masking tape under the counter.

Those pockets were full of things - baggies rolled longways of green dry grassy looking stuff with little seeds, and plastic rappers unopened with something unidentified but round inside clearly marked "TROJAN" that I would not until years later appreciate. Pictures. Money! Papers. Receipts. Safety pins. Rubber bands. Anything and everything, I tell you. And after teaching me the ins and outs of coin and pocket searching, we'd go to the Wag-a-Bag down the street and he'd buy me a coke and some candy, and sometimes, on the way back to the shop, he might make a stop in the 'hood and offer a little old black lady in a dumpy little shack (from which the delectable smell of true soul food radiated) a little money for an antique piece of heaven socked away on some dusty shelf behind a dull picture of a black Jesus. Most had no idea what they had, nor did they care until he seemed interested.

My grandfather was a hard-working business owner for over 40 years, and enjoyed collecting antiques (or as he called it "junk huntin'"),was an avid painter, and a master at woodworking from the most beautiful and functional pieces he fashioned for my grandmother to showcase her collections of porcelain dolls and carnival glass to whimsical and fun pieces such as the carousel horse that sits in my living room and the best wooden likenesses I've ever seen and people have raved over for years - cartoon characters, like Odie and Garfield, and Snoopy.

I wish I could remember all the pieces he's made over the years - the dark wood vanity table he made for me, complete with mirror and flip-up top - inside which was a brilliant blue felt covering, and a piece stitched in the middle which read "Happy 12th Birthday" in dark zig-zag stitch - a perfect gift for a 12-yr-old girl just beginning to use make-up and needing a place to put it all. My mother has it in her bedroom now. The cabinet he made for my sister whose house, at the time, was decorated in a santa fe motif, and this piece made it all come together - shades of green and terracotta, with zig-zaggy cut-outs and a howling wolf - and it came with a smaller box with cut-outs showing her choice of decor. These pieces were made especially for her need to have a place to put her stereo, albums, cd's, and video tapes. The toy boxes that each of the great-grandsons received, my son's for his 1st birthday, with his name in wood cut-outs and in great peepaw tradition, something different on each one - my son's had pictures of toys decoupage-style strategically placed and big rope handles on each side with a brass handle on the lid. My older nephew's had stirrups on the side and a saddle horn for the handle on the lid. The gun cabinet he and the same nephew built when he came of age and began to love hunting as any self respecting southerner should - masculine, with brass catches and hinges.

These things were built with love.
And it showed.

Many days I remember spending with him in his wood shop, 'helping' to build something. Anything. Little wooden toy cars and trucks, and the wheels rolled - and the dump trucks dumped. All wooden pieces. I played with them, and my son played with them as did my nephews when they were small. Yeah, I knew my grandmother was in the house cooking something that was bound to be delicious as was everything she cooked, but who wanted to cook? I wanted to be in the woodshop.

And how about those little wooden stand-alone cabinet boxes he built for both my grandmother and mother - the ones with little compartments to house everything to make coffee with, the water pitcher that goes with the Bunn coffeemaker, filters, etc. and finished off with a heart-shaped-beveled-on-the-back handle to open the little doors. And that's not even the half of it.

And he had an even softer side - the one only my grandmother saw, and seldom spoke about.

Except with her eyes.
And her smile.
Every time she looked at him.
But we saw it.

My grandfather, a once strong and absolutely wonderful man, was ravaged by Parkinsonism coupled with Lewy Body Disease and recently passed away. I miss him dearly, and will always possess a deep love and respect for him and the kind of man he was. The kind we all are/would be infinitely blessed to have had in our lives.

Happy Father's Day PeePaw. We all miss you.