Today I'm not writing this blog.

Today I'm posting an essay my elder brother wrote (I've got reprint writes) about the time he drove our grandfather from Alabama to Texas, back in the  late 60s.

Being our paternal grandfather, his name was Papaw (rhymes with "hacksaw") - our maternal grandfather was Peepaw :) Here's a picture of four-fifths of clan Puckett, as it existed in the mid 1960s (the missing fifth was my eldest uncle and his family, those being the folks who Papaw wanted to go visit in Texas)



The author of this essay, Jerry, is the teenage boy in glasses sitting up on the side of the truck - you can see him in the back, in the dark blue shirt.

The subject of the essay, Papaw, is the elder gentleman to the far left (see those cheekbones? When I say "Cherokee", I mean CHEROKEE :) - he's standing just behind Mamaw (my grandfather being referred to as Papaw, just who 'Mamaw' might be is left as an exercise for the reader.)

I am not going to mention who the short, oblivious cretin with the idiot grin in the lower center is. You won't hear that from me.

The Van Morrison lookalike at the far right is my eldest brother, Chuck. Beside him is my mother, Martha, and behind him is my father, Dave.

The rest of them are aunts, uncles and cousins.

Here's Jerry's story. I hope you enjoy it. I've edited it to the extent of white space and formatting - otherwise, it's all Jerry (except, of course, for that very real part which is Papaw, who still exists in the rest of us to the extent that we're worth anything).

A TRIP WITH PAPAW

 

In the early summer of 1969, my Dad asked me if I would drive Papaw to Texas. Now, I had no particular interest in going to Texas, but I was then, as now, always ready to go anyplace I’d never been, so, I agreed. What Dad didn’t know, and never did know, was that I owed Papaw a huge favor and I saw this as a chance to repay the kindness he had done me a few years earlier.

During the 66-67 school year we lived in Cullman, Alabama I had misplaced a number of books from the school library and Dad had to come up with $10.00 to pay for them. He was upset at what he rightly considered my carelessness and indicated to me in no uncertain terms that any repeat of this behavior would have serious consequences.

Later in that same year I again lost some books to the tune of around $12.00 and lived in fear for a few weeks until I hit on the idea of asking Papaw for the money. Papaw sold trucks for Drinkard Chevrolet in Cullman so I walked by there one afternoon after school. After finding him in the truck lot office beside his coffee pot, I explained my problem to him. Without comment about my carelessness, he promptly gave me the money and thereby saved me from whatever dire consequences Dad had in mind.

I was more than glad to drive him to Texas so he could visit his oldest son, my uncle John Paul. As far as I know he never mentioned the incident to Dad.

During the previous summer I had been given permission by Mamaw to drive Papaw’s truck up and down the driveway. I decided to go into the back yard and turn around but got stuck, axle deep, in the wet grass. Without the assistance of the next door neighbor, Mr. Berryman, the truck would have still been there when Papaw got home and I would have been in big trouble. In the event, Mr. Berryman helped me get the truck out and smooth over the ruts in the yard.  As far as I know, Mamaw never told Papaw about my indiscretion, so I owed her as well. I was never told why Mamaw didn’t go with us to Texas and I certainly never had the temerity to ask. Papaw and Mamaw had always been a beacon of calm authority in the maelstrom of my life and it never occurred to me to question anything they did.

We left early one morning with the intention of making it to Little Rock before dark. Back then there were no four lane roads between Hartselle and Memphis and I don’t remember when we came across Interstate but I’m sure it was somewhere in Arkansas. Papaw and I didn’t talk much as I drove. He would occasionally mention, without seeming to look at the speedometer, “I believe the limit here is 60”. I would look down and discover that I was going 65 or so and would immediately slow down to the indicated limit.

Papaw would point out a prosperous farm we would pass with occasionally some comment about how well someone was taking care of their place and he would, of course, direct me when and where to pull over for coffee. I don’t know when Papaw had last traveled this highway but he seemed to know where to stop for coffee and where not to stop for coffee. It occurs to me as I write this that Papaw never once pointed out the farms we passed that were in need of some work but then I guess he assumed that those people had enough troubles without some guy on the highway passing judgment on them.

Somewhere in Arkansas Papaw decided it was time to stop for the night so we found a motel and checked in. Papaw stayed in the room and I went to the pool were I met two girls from somewhere in Texas. I found out that they would have their room to themselves that night as their parents were going out to dinner. As adolescent dreams of time alone with two girls in a motel room filled my head, Papaw came out and informed me that is was time to come inside. Since it didn’t occur to me to explain my supposed opportunity to Papaw, I went in to bed early. I guess that having raised five boys he could sense when one was going to do something stupid because he came out just in the nick of time, to my everlasting regret.

Next morning we were up early and after breakfast at a coffee shop where Papaw had directed me, we were on the road again. As we went through Dallas I was carefully watching the signs over the Interstate to ensure we got through what was, to my inexperienced eye, a complicated system of interchanges and clover leafs.

I had decided that we needed to stay in the right lane at the next exit when Papaw told me to “bear to the left up ahead”. I asked him if he was sure and he told me he had been this way many times and I should bear to the left. So I took the next exit knowing, or at least suspecting, that we were now lost. When we had gone some distance Papaw said “You were right, we need to get back on the road west.” I felt pretty smug and indicated that I would take the next exit and turn around. As we neared the next exit he told me to pass it by and go the exit after that one, adding, “There’s a café with good coffee at that exit.” I realized that he had known all along where we were and he had no intention of bypassing any place with  coffee that was up to his exacting standards.

When we got to Lamesa I was immediately taken in hand by my cute girl cousins and shown around town and introduced to many of their friends.

I took a certain amount of ribbing from their friends about being from Alabama. Since I was from the home of George Wallace they assumed that I was a racist and constantly asked me about cross burnings and lynchings. My denials of any knowledge of these things were dismissed.  I must admit that for the first and only time in my life, I was ashamed of my state  and of the impression it had made on these people.

As we hung around together for the period of my visit I began to notice that these “nice” girls (all of my cousins’ friends seemed to be pretty teenage girls, or maybe that’s the only one’s I remember) frequently used words like “Beaner” and “Greaser” to describe any Hispanic person. They took it for granted that “Meskins” were second class citizens. It seemed best to me not to point out the unfairness of assuming that I was a  racist while demeaning their fellow Texans. I was, after all, a hormonally enhanced teenage boy and cute teenage girls would actually have to shed my blood in order to make me disagree with them.

I mentioned this apparent dichotomy to Papaw during the drive home. He sat for a few minutes and then told me, ”Boy, some people seem to need to find somebody to look down on. You’ll be a lot better off if you spend your time looking for somebody to look up to.” By the time we got back to Hartselle, I had realized that I had already found somebody.