Thinking of You on Your Birthday, Pops

              

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.