“Grandpa!”
“Oh, look, Grandpa!”
“Grandpa, Christmas lights!”
With a 4-year-old buckled in the backseat, we didn’t need a GPS to find the festive Yule lights scattered around town. And when I got turned around in the maze of an unfamiliar neighborhood, Wyatt giggled and said, “Grandpa, we’ve already seen those Christmas lights.”
Our first grandchild is now a 21-year-old and a junior in college. A friend predicted that when grandchildren start being born, “It’s like popcorn. Pop, pop, pop. Here they come.” And Robert was right. Wyatt has three brothers and four cousins.
I try to imagine what our eight will remember when they are celebrating their 76th Christmas. For me, I can recall 1952. I was 4, as was Wyatt when we got lost 3 miles from home, looking at twinkling lights.
On a frigid Dec. 25 morning, the black phone hanging on the kitchen wall rang. My mother’s father, Howell Vines, had died. Cancer had claimed the gregarious 56-year-old farmer. Santa’s toys would have to wait.
If we had been outside, we would have heard Aubrey Hires and his big cordovan wingtips crunching across our Frosted-Flakes-like St. Augustine grass. Instead, we were inside scrambling to pack our warmest clothes. That’s when we heard a knock on the back door.
Our next-door neighbor was delivering a “gift.” The county school superintendent called my dad “Neighbor.” In his baritone voice, he said, “Neighbor, it’s awfully cold. Here are the keys to my car. Take that little girl and your young ’uns to see her mamma.”
Aubrey Hires knew that our old green Dodge didn’t have a heater. Seventy-two years later, I can still feel the warmth of his Buick as we pulled away from the corner of Younce and Bamboo streets on our way to Baker County.
I have only three memories of Big Daddy, but I will never forget my last look at Mother’s father. I was standing on my tiptoes, peering into his casket in the front room of my grandmother’s farmhouse. Four-year-olds don’t understand death. But I knew he was dressed in his Sunday suit, the one he wore to Pilgrims Home Freewill Baptist Church. I also knew that I wouldn’t be sitting in his lap anymore.
That’s another memory.
I guess Big Daddy had heard me talking about Lash LaRue, whom I had seen at the A&P Grocery in Jesup. Inspired, he thought that I needed a whip like the one the TV cowboy had. I don’t remember our conversation, but I was fascinated—sitting in his lap—watching him plait the leather strips.
The whip is gone.
Big Daddy is gone.
Nanny, his wife, is gone.
The barn—crumpled in decay—is gone.
The farmhouse—destroyed by fire—is gone.
But here’s what is still with me, vivid as ever. The beep, beep of Big Daddy’s pickup truck horn. The windows were rolled down, so I could hear the screen door creaking open.
Drying her hands on a flour-sack apron, Nanny hollers, “Howell, what is it?”
“Essie, come get this boy!”
“Why, Howell?”
“I’ll never get my chores done!”
“Why, Howell?”
“He asks too many ding-bob questions.”
Big Daddy wouldn’t have been surprised that I became a newspaperman.
When they are 76 years old, I wonder what Wyatt, Hayes, William, Henry, Fenn, Bayard, Smith and Stella will remember about their grandpa.
But I hope they never forget that three of life’s most-treasured gifts are family, friends and cherished memories.
Merry Christmas, everyone.
dnesmith@cninewspapers.com
