Go Pick Your Switch....

Pappy is ninety-six
Makes me a little sappy.

A man of many life lessons.  He spoiled me like no other and whipped me like no other too. 

I thought for the longest time that the little skinny branches would be the best switches.  Wrong.  If you ever have to get whipped with a switch get the big fat ones.  A big fat tree branch that you can hardly carry would probably be best.  I still have no clue of why I ever got switched.  Only thing I can think of is maybe I rode my bike onto Cherry st.  I was only allowed to go down to the Eggleston's and a little past J.T. & Mary Dean's.  I guess the switches didn't burn into my conscience that I should not go places where I was told not too, for I have been guilty of that far too many times.

He also taught me my fine driving skills in the best car EVER.  It was a white Plymouth Duster.  Like this one. 

I felt like I was on the race track in that thing cruising the back roads of Forreston. 

One time we were cruising along out towards Bethel, windows down the wind blowing in our my hair, and he specifically told me to watch out for the cucarachas.  I had no idea what a cucaracha was, but I watched out anyways.  I think in my mind it was something like this:

Mind you it was hard for me to see things in the road, for I could barely see over the wheel.  And as we are b-boppin along, I hit something in the road.  He screamed out something, I screamed out something and so scared I had hit a cucaracha I almost ran off the road.  Pappy drove us back home.  :(  Turns out, it wasn't a cucaracha.  It was a tree branch.

I loved that he didn't make me do my school lessons before I played.  I loved that he would pay for my lunch when we went to town.  I loved all the roses he planted along the drive way.  When I would spend the night in the spring or summer, I would wake up, go outside to the wonderful aroma of the roses.  Heaven.  Or close I would assume.  To this day, I haven't seen any roses like Pappy's roses.  Some are very close though. 

I still miss him like crazy, and wonder what would have been if....the circumstances would have been different. So today, I will force myself to stop and smell the roses in his honor.  Too bad I can't have a Humbert's bar b q sandwich or go to a Catfish King.  So I will force myself to eat some chocolate or something sweet.  And then I will focus on my school lessons :)