Hiram, Honey, Daddy, Papaw

I get emotional when I look through old photographs. So, emotional am I indeed as I paw through my pics choosing some for this post. If the measure of a happy life is having a loving family, then mine is immeasurable. Yesterday would have been my dad's 68th birthday had we not lost him to lung cancer December 22, 2002. So as you can imagine, I've sort of been lost in thought about Dad, Mom, our lives, and his death. This post has the potential of becoming way too long, so instead I'm going to offer a few words of tribute, then a visual essay of the man, husband, father, father-in-law, and the papaw that he was. Pictures really do speak a thousand words, so I'll spare you those thousand and just let you see for yourself. I wanted to post this yesterday but was still schooling myself on scanning photos into the computer, plus once I started looking through the pics, I could not stop....Mom and Dad were high school sweethearts in the 50's in a small east Texas town, Linden, Texas. He was a football stud, she a majorette and a gifted baton twirler. All high schools in the 50's had baton twirlers at their football games. I think my mom even took twirling lessons. They were football king and queen together. They married in August of 1958 right after they graduated in May and went on their senior trip to Galveston. I was born in October of 1959 and in 1964, my brother Daren was born. My childhood was vintage southern. They made a big deal out of Christmas, we dyed eggs at Easter, we went to Linden to visit grandparents and to sit on porches summers and holidays, we went to church every

Sunday while a roast and potatoes simmered in the oven. Every Sunday whilst reposing on the red church pew mom would lean over and whisper a hopeful, "Did you turn the roast off?" and because he had a gruff voice and could not whisper he would say "Yes babe" in a manner that assured everyone else on all surrounding pews that our lunch would be tasty. We went to the beach and he carried me on his shoulders out into the surf. I "rode around" with him in his plumbing truck after he started his plumbing business in 1971. He was the hardest working man I've ever known and did it happily. Enthusiastically, really. Mom tended the home fires and cooked and cleaned her baseboards, and polished her stove with "Jubilee", was "room mother" for our school classes, and had her WMU friends over for lunch when it was her turn and we watched "The Waltons" every Thursday night. We ate dinner at our "dinette" set every night. Evil (yummy) foods like fried steak and gravy, meatloaf and mashed potatoes, and the ever popular, salmon patties. My dad enjoyed being a husband, a father, a father- in -law and a grandfather. He relished time with all of us. After he was diagnosed with lung cancer in the spring of '02, he relished it even more. He would often tell my mom how he realized more than ever how blessed he was with her, his two kids, and all the precious grandchildren swarming around him. Reflecting back over my life I, too, realize how formidable some one's presence in your life can be and what a hole is left when they are gone. My parents were married 44 years when he died and this coming August 1 would have marked 50 years. My ability to enjoy life with gusto as well as navigate choppy seas is born of their legacy of stability, support, faith, and love. Would that I gift my three with the same. Happy Birthday Daddy.