my papaw, my mother's father, was a giant of a man, or at least he seemed so to me. he was well over six feet tall with a large, powerful frame. he had a shock of white hair on his head and a rugged, wrinkled face, full of character. he dwarfed most other people. when he spoke, his voice had a tenderness that belied his appearance, though he was a man of few words.
he was a skilled butcher. when i was a small child, he and my mamaw had a large meat locker in their store, in which huge quarters of beef and pork hung from hooks in its ceiling. the locker was made of beautiful oak wood. on its front were small doors with glass in their center where smaller items like dairy products and eggs were kept. the main door to the locker was heavy with a locking mechanism to keep the cold in. i was terrified to go into the locker, fearing that i might be trapped in it if the door closed behind me, despite there being a big button with a spring behind it that would open the door from the inside. as he got older, he reduced the amount of meat that was stored in the locker, and by the time he died from heart failure, he and my mamaw had decided to do away with the locker and end the butcher part of their business.
i remember being in the store one day when a man from out in the country came in and asked papaw if he would be interested in buying some racoons the man had killed to sell in his store. i was shocked when papaw took him up on the offer. i couldn't stay around when the beautiful animals were brought in. papaw prepared the carcasses for sale, skinning them and and carving them up for cooking. they sold quickly, because several of his customers thought "coon meat" was a delicious delicacy. i'm sure that it was a violation of the food laws for such wild meat to be sold in this way, but no one was going to report it, so delighted were the people who bought the meat to be able to enjoy this wild game.
papaw was a "new deal" democrat. he believed that franklin roosevelt was one of the greatest men who had ever lived, second only to jesus. for as long as i can remember, a framed portrait of fdr hung on my grandparents' living room wall. for both my grandparents voting a straight democratic party ticket was a religious exercise. papaw wouldn't brook anyone speaking ill of a democrat officeholder and particularly saying anything bad about president roosevelt or any of his policies. he also revered eleanor roosevelt, who was the ideal first lady, in his opinion.
neither of my grandparents went to church. papaw had been raised a methodist, though his ancestors in north carolina were presbyterians. when his grandfather came with his family to settle in arkansas, there was no presbyterian church in the county where they lived, so the next best thing for them was the methodist church. succeeding generations of arkansas members of the family remained methodists. my grandmother's baptist church practiced "closed communion," which meant that anyone who wasn't a baptist was excluded from communion, and my papaw refused to attend a church where he and other members of his family couldn't take communion. likewise, my mamaw insisted that the only valid baptism was by immersion, and most methodists were baptized as children by "sprinkling." for that reason, she wouldn't join the methodist church, so after they married, they both stopped attending church. once that decision was made early in their marriage, religion was not discussed between them, though either was happy to debate on the subject with anyone else.
all through his married life, papaw owned several acres of land somewhere out in the countryside where he would raise cattle. he always called this little ranch "his farm." one or two days a week he would leave town and drive out to "the farm" to check on the land and cattle. i never knew of him killing any of the cattle he raised or butchering one to sell in his store. instead, he would sell his cattle at auction so someone else would have the job of killing them. he always bought beef that had already been prepared for butchering from a meat wholesaler. when i visited, i would sometimes go with him to his farm. we would spend all day walking the land, ensuring the barn and other structures were in good repair, the fence was intact, and the cattle were alright. papaw took great delight in these exercises, but i was bored with it all and ready to leave after an hour or so.
papaw was not as important a figure in my young life as mamaw, though i loved him deeply and enjoyed his company. he was a private man, not given to idle talk. when a subject interested him, though, he could talk at length with anyone who wanted to engage in conversation about that topic. he loved mathematics. his idea of a relaxing evening was to sit alone in his bedroom and study a math textbook, while mamaw and i watched television. he was determined that his oldest two sons would have the opportunity to study geometry, trigonometry, and calculus and that they would attend the university of arkansas to become engineers after high school. when the high school in magnolia refused to offer those subjects, he sold his store in magnolia and moved the family to texarkana, where the high school did offer advanced math classes.
like mamaw, he didn't continue his formal education beyond the eighth grade, but he was a brilliant man who could hold his own in debate with anyone. i admire his determination to see that his children received the best education he and mamaw were able to provide for them and to instill in them a life-long love of learning and the belief that their own children should be well educated.
may we learn from the example of people like my papaw. may we value learning and realize that not all education comes from books. may we pass a legacy of respect for knowledge to our children. may we use whatever skills we have in the service of others. may we remember that true religion consists of caring for one another. shalom.
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