Pop

 Late last night my dad sent Heather and I a picture of our great Grandpop. It was his wedding photo from about 1915. He is dashing and looks a little dangerous. Unrecognizable from the 90 year old man I knew. Pop in my memory was a small round man that woke early. 

“Coffee, coffee, coffee.” He would mumble, rising before the sun and sitting at the table to have his first cup. Pop was always dressed impeccably and the man could walk. I mean he really walked. I remember walking with him. He had a walking stick to protect us from wild dogs. At least that’s what he told me it was for. And when you walked with Pop, you were gone for most of the day. He walked in winter's chill. He walked Georgia's sticky summer heat. In a suit. Miles and miles. 

When he wasn’t walking he was in his room watching PBS. I would go and sit with him. Not because I enjoyed PBS. B I was there because he always had a full Whitman's Sampler on his dresser. I would sit and eat candy in the relative quiet with him. He would let me hold his shiny pocket watch. I was fascinated with that watch. It was like something out of a book. Something from another time. I would sit and eat candy and make up stories about his magical pocket watch, until I couldn’t sit anymore and I would run off chasing another adventure.

My dad loved Pop. Pop spent time with him as a boy walking railroad tracks and watching the passenger trains go by.

When he died he left me his pocket watch. It sat on my dresser, telling its own stories. And helping me with mine.