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| Pops All Dressed Up Too Serious! |
This
June 21, it's not just the first official day of summer, but it's my
grandfather's birthday. Though he died
in 1959, I think of him often because he was one of the important people in my
childhood. I didn't realize until
recently that he was born on this day in 1887 because I don't remember that we
ever celebrated his birthday and only a little ancestor research taught me that
this day was the day his life began 126 years ago.
Raymond
Livingston Artope was my mother's father whom we called Pops. By the time I was born, he was 59 years old,
so my childhood memories are of this man in his 60's. When you're a kid, people in their seventh
decade are OLD people. Now that I've
achieved 60+ years, it doesn't seem all that old to me, but then it was
definitely old.
As I
look back from adulthood, that childhood impression of age is altered by
experience. I realize that he was, in
fact, still living a vigorous life, pursuing his craft as a carpenter. Perhaps he wasn't working as much as in
younger years because he certainly had time to spend with family, thus my
memory of his importance to me.
He was a
big man, hearty and strong. It seemed
that his chest was broad as a barrel and though he didn't carry a belly, he seemed
to fill up space in the front seat of his pickup truck. One of our joys as kids was riding in the
back of that truck. There were no
seatbelts then and his only rule was that we "hold on." I'm pretty sure the truck never went fast
enough when we were back there to generate much danger.
We
learned that the danger came from within that front seat. Pops chewed tobacco. People who chew tobacco spit
occasionally. What is spat is brown and
slimy and acidic. When one is driving a
pickup and spits out of the window, that nasty stuff is carried by the wind
around the corner of the cab and across the bed of the truck. After once experiencing the sudden whap! of
chewed tobacco across the face, we learned to listen for the spit and we ducked
fast. It was an art of childhood that we
mastered pretty quickly.
The
other knowledge gleaned from that pickup was related to the clinking noise that
always came from under the seat. Nosy
kids had to find out what it was, of course, and given an opportunity, we explored. What we found rattling around under there was
a whiskey bottle. Young enough to be
brash, I marched into the house and asked Pops why it was there. He replied simply that he liked a drop now
and then. When I asked why, he said that
carpenters always drink a little whiskey.
And that was that.
Pops had
a workshop in the basement of my grandparents' Atlanta home. It seemed like a special cave. He made little wooden stools for us to sit
when we visited him there and he placed them a safe distance from the
workbench. He was savvy and didn't want
us to get sawdust in our eyes or to be hit by an errant nail hammered
inelegantly.
A man of
few words, my grandfather didn't say much most of the time, but he would talk
as he worked. Those hours we were
allowed in the workshop were special times when we saw the care he took as he
crafted a bookcase or cabinet. Despite
the fact that the basement was unfinished and had a distinctive smell, a mix of
the Georgia red clay that floored it and the years of sawdust that had been
generated, I remember it as an organized place. He had places for tools and materials and
kept them in those places. I wonder now
if that's where I got my need for a similar organization.
Pops
managed to convey both his affection for us and his pride in us in his quiet
way. When our grandmother, the family
worrywart, would begin to chastise us for some misbehavior or careless
transgression, he would gently, but firmly, remind her that we were just
children. He always made us feel that he
was on our side.
There
remained a hint of mystery about him. He
didn't talk about his past or his philosophy of life. I don't remember any comments about politics
or the state of the world. He wasn't
overtly religious. He was a craftsman
who lived simply, loved his family and, some might say, made little mark on the
world. He did, we were told, help build
the amazing Fox Theatre in Atlanta.
There is no plaque there with his name or the names of the many artisans
who built that marvel.
He did,
though, make a mark on me. He left me
memories that I cherish and the pride
that somewhere in me are his good genes.
Thanks, Pops, and Happy Birthday.
