After my parents divorced,my grandmother came to live with my mom and my brothers in Connecticut during the school year. During the summer,we'd all pack the car and spend our entire summer in Washington at my Grandfather's house.
We called him Granddaddy.
While we would spend our summers in DC,so that in part my grandparents could be together,there would be a few times a year when Granddaddy would show up at our Hartford home.Sometimes only my Grandmother would know when he was coming,other times he'd surprise everyone and just show up! Christmas, however were the holidays we knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he'd be with us.
When Granddaddy would come to town,he would come via the Greyhound Bus,and despite my mom's willingness to pick him up at the Greyhound station,the only time I can ever remember him calling for a ride home was April 4,1968 after Martin Luther King was assassinated,and something tells me if he could have gotten a cab that night,he would have. He'd leave DC early in the morning,and as soon as dusk struck,no matter what my brothers and I might be doing,we'd take time to look out the window in anticipation of his arrival.
..Then sometime in the evening it would happen. A Yellow Cab would pull up in our driveway. A moment or so later,he'd emerge,complete with his fedora hat and a single suitcase.
GRANDDADDY!!
My brothers and I would yell,and we'd start to run out the door to greet him. We'd inevitably be stopped by my Grandmother. When I look back,I think my Grandmother was determined to be the first to greet him when he'd walk through our doors.
There's a saying "You can take the man out of the country,but the you can't take the country out of the man." That was Granddaddy. Awake and doing something by 6 am..Grits and gravy with biscuits for breakfast. He never quite understood why my brothers and I liked to stay in bed in the morning,and after a couple days in town,there he'd be,trying to break us of that habit. My brothers and I would be on our best behavior when he was in town. Just his talk about "the switch" and using it was enough to keep us in line. He was a man of sayings and stories,some of which he'd repeat so many times,you knew the endings before he got to them. His stories and sayings had a moral tale behind them,so it was important for him to get the point across. One he'd repeat to me is "Cleon Jones (a New York Mets outfielder I admired) is not going to be around to help you when you grow up!"
I was good at baffling him. For the life of him,he could NOT understand how I could name all the Presidents,get A's and B's in school and fail to see the piece of trash that was right in front of me..or not notice that my shoes were untied.At the same time,he was proud that I could do the things I could do.
Granddaddy never came bearing gifts at Christmastime. He could have if he wanted to,he was successful in Real Estate and owned various properties around D.C.,including a plot of land large enough to put a house on,but instead was used as a garden plot. The gift he'd bring was that of himself. His gift was making people want to be around him,and until his passing in 1972 the best gift one could ask for.. I'd be remiss if I didn't recall one of my fondest Christmas memories..That of Granddaddy,my Dad,my brothers along with some neighborhood kids watching the 1971 playoff game between the Miami Dolphins and Kansas City Chiefs in what became the longest game in football history.
