Happy Birthday Pappy!
My grandparents took me home from the hospital that January back in 1971, and were my primary care providers until I was old enough to go the world on my own some 18 years later, and more times than they should have off and on after that. I find myself more and more thinking, man…that man was right! I should’ve listened better.
My granddad loved me…”from the bottom of my heart” he’d always say. Grandparents are supposed to spoil you right? Mine did their job, very well.
Those that knew my grandfather can probably remember me as a kid, right by his side at the Ford house in Ralls, playing grease monkey...But largely just getting in the way. Or afternoons at Alvie's Coffee Shop. After he retired from the Ford house he opened his own garage and became a repo man for Lubbock National Bank.
This was back before they took repo’d cars to the auction. The bank would just sign the vehicle over to him, tell him what was owed on it and he’d re-sell it for that and whatever he got over that was basically his gravy! But there was times when I knew how much was owed and a prospective buyer would be demo-ing the vehicle and the question would finally come…”Pappy, how much you want for that car?” My granddad would answer and I would inevitably open my mouth and spoil the deal!
Or in my pre-driver license years my granddad would phone the house in the summer and tell me to bring a car down to the shop. “But, Pappy, I don have a license…what if L.T. pulls me over?” L.T. was the local police chief, just so you know. My granddad would say if he pulls you over, tell him that I said he can tell me who can drive my cars when he starts paying for them!
Oh well, just had to think about my Pappy on this day. Gone, but most certainly not forgotten.
Noble Eugene “Pappy” Grant, April 11, 1913 – June 27, 2002