Grandaddy Frank

When I was very small my brother and I stayed with my grandparents while my mom worked in Savannah. It was during WWII and she worked at the shipyard during the week and rode the bus home on the weekends. My dad was in the Army. For a time they were my parents. They taught me a lot of things when I was with them. I remember grandaddy worked in Hinesville. He was a carpenter and he helped build housing for the soldiers stationed at nearby Fort Stewart. It would be late sometimes when he got home and he would bring us little things from work. He made us little benches from scrap lumber and wooden guns too. We liked to play cowboys and indians. He also brought us an aluminum cup like the soldiers used. We both still have them. When the war was over and my dad came home we were a family again. But I still stayed with my grandparents a lot. When I was about four he taught me to fish. At that time it was only in the pond he had. Later he taught me how to paddle the boat around in the pond. He taught me how to find the best fishing spots. He also taught me how to string my reed pole, and tie on a hook and bait it. Later I learned how to clean fish too. Every morning when I would go there he would always say "good morning sunshine." Later he shortened it to shine. My dad didn't like it for some reason so he had to start calling me Jerrie. Lots of things I know he taught me because he was there when my dad was at work. He farmed and he taught me how to plant seed, and how to take care of a garden. Many times I walked behind him in the furrows when he plowed the fields with a mule. My grandmother depended on him a lot. She would make out her grocery list and he would go to town and buy what they needed. He grew tobacco and he taught me how to work in that also. During the summer I would make a little spending money working in tobacco. He would get his tobacco ready and cured. They cured tobacco by keeping a fire going in a furnace inside the tobacco barn. Mostly my uncles did that and sometimes I would stay up with them for a while. I went to sleep though, to young to stay up all night. They put tobacco on burlap sheets and loaded it on trucks and took it to market at night. The damp night air got it in "order". That means it softened the leaves so they wouldn't be brittle and break up. Sometimes when it sold the next day we would go with him to market. He put us on his sheets and we had better stay put. He would buy us boiled or roasted peanuts or homemade ice cream, and at lunch we got a hamburger. This was always fun for me especially when he auctioneer and buyers came by. I never could understand what they said. I watched him blow out stumps many times with dynamite. All you heard was a loud thump and the stump would move a little bit and that was it. Then you could drag it out. He cleared a lot of stumps that way. I learned a lot from him over the years. He was always there if I needed him. We were living in Kansas January 1, 1969, when I got a call that he had a heart attack and died in my brothers arms on the way to the hospital. I didn't have the money to come home for the funeral but my family said I was better off not coming. Maybe they are right, I have memories of life not death. I am proud of what he taught me and I try to be what he would expect of me. I hope I have succeeded.

neon_sapphire