Many stories I tell among friends start out with, my Papaw always said...
Everyone should know my Papaw. Maybe not even just know him, but know him the way I do. Let me attempt to explain.
When I was a little boy my cousins and I would often be together at Papaw and Granny's house. They lived just outside of Dawson Springs, right next door to their antique shop; Storms Antiques. Usually after dinner, when we all began to settle down we would gather around and listen to him tell stories. Good stories. Some in his lap, some at his feet, each of us as close as we could get to him, while he would fascinate us with these tales. He told us stories about The Old Blue Sow, that roamed a tiny village and was really a witch. The story about his Great Grandfather traveling far from home who hitched a ride back from a flock of geese. One about a terrified minister who burst out of a church window into a brier patch. All of these stories enthralled us and we would ask question after question; before, during and after. Papaw always came up with answers, as any good storyteller would. My all time favorite was about how he got to marry my Granny. Which involved a series of tests. Test like finding a needle in a hay stack, choosing the right duckling on a pond, eventually he passed and they were able to be together after all. My cousins and I would always deduct that she had helped him along all the way; it is a sweet family story.
Nonetheless, as I got older and I began to understand the stories, Papaw replaced them with poetry. We would spend nights after dinner at his house going through book after book reading poetry to one another. Even poems that he had written, long ago and ones he was working on at the time. On those nights he open doors to me that I didn't know existed. My Granny would be involved as well and if my Aunt Judy was in town she would read and contribute too; it was a family affair.
Somewhere along the way my Papaw became interested in genealogy too and he researched our family heritage. Going to courthouses, writing letters to distant relatives, visiting old folks throughout the countryside, and going to cemeteries. I was a part of that block of time as well and in tow I went on many of those fact finding missions, soaking up all that I could.
Throughout all of that time I developed a love for storytelling, poetry and my ancestral background. Over the past ten years I couldn't calculate all the late nights he and I have spent talking about the lore of our family, in and out. The good, bad and the ugly. The hours we have spent reading poetry. Poems by Sassoon, Emerson, Whitman, Kipling, and the list goes on.
I shouldn't forget to mention that he also took me fishing every Spring, I will have to elaborate on that in another blog. I have plenty of stories involving Papaw. We worked in his yard together, I went on trips with he and Granny. Life was good when I was growing up. Not only did I have great parents but I really had awesome grandparents and aunts and uncles. My sister and I always had an abundance of love and attention.
The funny thing about this particular blog is that I have only written about a part of my Papaws life, the part that began in 1981. I have left out the fifty one years leading up to the time that I came into his life. The part of his story that involves him being the oldest of ten children and that he was working from the time we was old enough to help his parents make a farm work. The fact that he survived the great depression and used the time to dream about all the things he wanted to see and do in life. I left out the story about him joining the United States Army at seventeen. His resume would state that he was a guard at the War Crime Trials in Tokyo, Japan after World War II. It would also be noted that he served in the Korean and Vietnam Wars and that he put in two peace time tours in post war Germany during the 1950s and 1960s. I should also record that after serving his country for twenty five years he and his wife put all their interest into Storms Antiques which they had been working on for many years and to top it all off, throughout all those years they managed to rear four children.
As interesting as it seems this is still a "Readers Digest Version.
On May 5Th, of this year Papaw will celebrate his 80Th birthday. For the last ten years he has been wheelchair bound due to the full amputation of one of his legs. He still manages at home and has a mind as sharp as a steel trap. He's Papaw...why wouldn't he?
As the years have gone by he has suffered too. Losing many family members and most recently my Granny after being married for over fifty years. When the holidays roll around my family all gather around his table, as he says a prayer to bless our family and our food. Many times He has described our family as an old Oak tree, that through the years the family had weathered many storms but never fell. I suppose that is how I would describe him. Like the Oak that was tried and true.
Somewhere along the way Papaw began addressing cards and letters, even poetry to me by saying: "My Pal, My Friend," and what an achievement that was for me. To have reached the day when my ultimate mentor, my Hero even, had began to refer to me as a friend. If you know me well you have heard me talk about Papaw, and you will again. Because this man has done something with his life that seems so easy but can be very hard. He has lived it. As simple as that, every second, every minute, every hour put to good use. And though I live nine hundred or more miles away from him I feel the bond that we have is as strong as it always was. My Dad's, Dad: Edward Eugene Storms (I).
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