My Poppop

“They will still bear fruit in old age, they will stay fresh and green.” (Psalms 92:14)

My Poppop was a wealth of knowledge. He wrote for the Providence Journal Bulletin for 40 years and was even nominated for a Pulitzer’s Prize for his work. As an investigative reporter, he rubbed elbows with some of the best…and some of the worst. His obituary speaks proudly of the organized crime ring that he helped take down through his reporting. He also interviewed Henry Ford for the Ford Motor Company’s 50th Anniversary; I have some of the stationary and memorabilia from that event.

But none of that is why I loved him.

Obviously, I get my love of writing from my paternal grandfather. In part, my love of music (he played multiple instruments), as it runs on both sides of the family. I get my love of learning from Poppop, too. And my chess-playing ability. I’ve squared off with some of the best. I haven’t always won, but I’ve always made them work for the win. (Of course, I haven’t played in a while, but I’m confident it’s like riding a bike…)

Going to my paternal grandparents’ home each weekend was a magical time for me. Yeah, I’m honest enough to admit they spoiled me, but I’m going with age and experience on their part on how to teach children the wonders of the world.

Some of my fondest memories of Poppop are of Saturday nights sitting beside him on the couch while he read stories to me, or listened to me read them aloud to him, while occasionally blowing in my ear to make me giggle from the tickle of it. Sometimes he simply shared little tidbits of knowledge with me: “What letter of the alphabet is the most used in the English language?” I may have been 5 when he posed this question to me. I remember saying “A”. The correct answer is “E”.

When he wasn’t banging away at the keyboard of his manual typewriter, he was sitting out in the yard, smoking his cigar, and watching the birds. He was an avid birdwatcher (I am, too). He kept an assortment of bird feeders well-stocked and a bird bath to which a ceramic cardinal and ceramic blue jay perched alongside their living “cousins”. (One of the first knick knacks that I ever purchased for myself was a cardinal and a blue jay sitting on a branch…)

He tried to teach me to play the piano a time or two, but I wasn’t receptive to that teaching (something I rue to this day…).

However, I never left my grandparents’ home on Sunday evening without my Poppop driving his big old black Buick sedan to the railroad tracks on Kilvert Street in Warwick, Rhode Island. We would sit in the parking lot beside a tenement there (from which I rented an apartment years later!) and wait. Almost the whole family–Poppop, Nanny (my grandmother), Aunt Margie and Mom & I (sadly, my father, his son, never wanted to be a part of my weekend)–went along for the ride. We sat and we waited until those railroad lights started flashing and the arm came down to stop traffic going over the tracks. Once the train went by, we drove down the other end of the road to another parking lot–usually the bank’s–and watched one jet take off and another land, all with a sense of wonder over the marvels of modern technology.

Poppop’s 119th birthday was this past Sunday. Alcoholism took him from us too soon at the age of 68. But, despite this social “disease”, he lived a life well. He will forever be my “Poppop”.

May God bless you & keep you!