GRAND Magazine - November/December 2019 - 14

memories and moments
Recalling his penchant for growing a full bushy
beard when the weather cooled, (as much as Florida
weather 'cools') Hannah began;
I remember once when I was very young, mom
dropped me off to stay with Popi while she shopped. I
was mad because I wanted to go with her and pitched a
full 'Lying On The Floor-Yelling-Kicking Feet-Fit'. Poppy
just sat in that big brown chair and watched me for a
while then told me if I didn't stop all that caterwauling
I would wake Murphy and he would not be happy. He
said Murphy was a very grouchy old squirrel who liked
to sleep under his beard and hates it when someone
wakes him up. He said, in fact, the last time Grammy
yelled at him to come to dinner Murphy jumped on her
head and chewed all her hair, that's why it's so short
now. I think I spent the rest of the afternoon coloring
quietly on the floor keeping one eye on that beard and
one hand on my hair.
Jay laughed out loud, remembering Popi's "Uh-Oh!
When he saw Grammys car come around the corner;
When I was in third grade I spent a spring break with
Grampa and Gramma. There weren't any other kids
around, so it was just me and Grampa while Gramma
worked. As we all know Grampa couldn't stand to be
in the house unless there was a hurricane or snow outside so a lot of my time was spent in the garage with
a couple of his old tools trying to take stuff apart that I
later found out he had Super Glued together. I brought
my skateboard, but he said what would happen to him
if Gramma found out he let me do something where I
could get hurt would not be pretty, so I could only ride
it up and down the street in front of his house. I must
have whined the whole day and was watching TV when
he called me outside. I remember dragging my feet
14 GRAND

Nov-Dec 2019

because I thought I was in trouble but he had set up my
skateboard and his mechanics creeper together at the
beginning of the driveway. I laid on my skateboard and
he laid on the creeper, we raced down the driveway and
all the way to the end of the street about ten times, until
Gramma came driving up the street. He was right ... she
was not happy.

As we went around the table there
were many more Grampa-isms

I don't remember how old I was, but my brothers and I
were allowed to join Grammy and Grampa when they were
camping in that pop up they used to have. We brought a
little pup tent with us and begged to be allowed to sleep in
it by ourselves. It took some doing-especially with Grammy,
but Grampa finally pitched that little tent for us. Grammy
said Josh and I could sleep in it but Cameron was too little.
We couldn't wait for it to get dark and for the first time in
our lives begged to be able to go to bed. Grammy made us
promise to stay in the tent all night, if we had to go to the
bathroom we were to call her-she would be sleeping by the
window and would hear. If we heard a noise we were to call
her, if we saw an animal around the tent we were to call
her, if we saw a human close to our camp space we were to
call her, she said more but my ears fell asleep. Grampa just
growled cut the crap and go to sleep! We felt like Daniel
Boones staring at the tent roof and imagining we were
deep in the woods, we goofed off for a while and must have
fallen asleep when we heard a kind of thump. We listened
for a while and then heard a grunt. I told Josh to see what
it was but he said I was the biggest and it was my job, so I
scrunched over and peeped out the window but didn't see

anything. We heard funny noises a couple more times but
never saw anything, it was a long night. When we crawled
out of the tent in the morning we found Grampa sound
asleep in the lawn chair positioned at the corner of the tent
so we couldn't see him if we looked out the window.
As we went around the table there was many more
Grampa-isms-The twins' birthday spent at the park with
Grampa flipping burgers and dogs on the grill for what
seemed like a hundred teenagers in what seemed like
a hundred degrees - complaining the whole time but
refusing to relinquish the spatula... Memories of opening Christmas packages and running to Grampa to put
it together-or bringing him a toy that had been played
with a little too hard because he could fix anything.
The ever-present WWF wrestling show on the TV. The
joke that band-aid was his signature fashion accessory
because he never completed a project without a couple
of drops of blood, due to his taking blood thinners. His
being seemingly sound asleep in the brown chair but
would join the conversation at sporadic times without as
much as opening his eyes.
There are as many memories as there are hours spent
with a loved one, all we have to do is remember them. I
believe doing so in the midst of all this love and laughter
helped the day to be a wonderful celebration of his life
instead of a sad memory.

Rose Paddick has five of the greatest
children in the world, twenty-one greatest
grandchildren in the world, two greatest
great-grandchildren in the world, two greatest
great-great-grandchildren in the world, a
computer and a four-legged ghostwriter.

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GRAND Magazine - November/December 2019

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