| Sunday, January 21, 2007 |
| The Greatest Man I Ever Knew |
May 2, 1918 - January 21, 2007
My papaw passed away this morning. He has suffered from congestive heart failure for over a year. Papaw was father to five, grandfather to nine plus their spouses, and great-grandfather to seven. I know his stories. Sometimes I can even tell them better than he can. He grew up farming along the Missouri - Arkansas border, served as a crew chief on a B-17 during WWII(where he reached the rank of Master Sargent), owned a diner and two different transmission shops. I could tell you stories of cars he built or places he traveled to but I could never tell them with his flair. He had a way of doing things and making things you just knew would never work, work. He was the original McGyver.
When I was around six and my cousin Kris was about nine, he took us on a week long fishing trip to Toledo Bend. He and Mamaw loaded up their camper, hitched up the boat, and off we went. The first time we went out on the lake, I was fishing out of the back of the boat when my line got tight and I started yelling that I had a fish. Papaw looked at my line and saw that it was sitting still and thought I was hung on something underwater. He told me that he was going to start up the boat and idle off. Once the boat started to move the water exploded and the biggest fish I had ever seen leaped clear of the water. I was so excited that I almost threw my pole out of the boat. Papaw heard me yelling and stopped the boat. He stared giving me tips on what to do and telling me that I could reel it in. I thought that fish would pull me out of the boat but I finally got it in and Papaw took it off the hook and weighed it. He said that it weighed 15.5 pounds but looking back and knowing more, I think it was more like 5.5 pounds and he was puffing up a little boy's ego. That was the first and biggest fish of the trip. We ate it for supper that night. The next day my cousin caught one that he said was 13.5 but again, looking back, I think he added ten pounds for our sakes. He went out the third day by himself and caught about 6 fish if I remember right, but they were barely big enough to keep. On the way home, Papaw told me that he wasn't going to take me on another fishing trip, and he never did. Not that we didn't go fishing any after that, we just never went on another trip like that. Truth of the matter, Papaw didn't make the trip to many more times. His fishing buddy couldn't take the trip anymore so Papaw quit going. That was one of the best trips I ever took.
You are deeply loved and missed Papaw. |
posted by Ben @ 9:11 PM  |
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