For Papa

I want to tell you more about my Papa, but today I leave you with a story and a poem that my Papa taught to me when I was maybe 12 or 13 years old. Grams was so mad at Papa for teaching me this poem because it has a cuss word in it. However, Papa knew even then how much love I have for the arts, and he taught me this. My mom and I were joking that only I have the ability to remember silly stories and details that others would forget within a few weeks. I remember silly things in vivid detail. Often when I want to talk about something in the past I try and bring back all my memories. I have been able to tell my husband what we were eating and where when we had a certain talk 10 years ago. Who remembers this kind of stuff?! I'll tell you who. ME! So here's the back story before the poem. And yes folks, this is a true story, and the poem is one that was written for the feelings had by Uncle Joe.

There were a group of guys who would always meet up at the local store for coffee. They'd all drive in from their farms and from town to meet up and shoot the breeze. Well a man by the name of Old Dad Frad did not have a car. He lived out in the country, so he would walk to the highway, and one of the other guys would pick him up. He made a habit of cutting through a couple of fields on his way to save time. One of these fields belonged to Bradley Pigg.

Bradley Pigg got tired of Old Dad Frad using his field to cut through, so he told Old Dad Frad that if he saw him walking through his field again, he would call the cops and have him arrested. Dad Frad didn't think much of it, and the next day he went on to the highway through the field again. Bradley saw him and called the cops. Dad Frad ended up calling the coffee shop to have his buddies come bail him out. All the guys at the shop pulled their money together to get him out, and they brought him back to have coffee.

From that day on, someone always drove to get Old Dad Frad from his home so he wouldn't be arrested any more. However, the story goes, that anytime there was a lightening storm or thunderstorm with a lot of lightening withing a certain radius of Bradley Pigg's farm, somehow it always caught fire. ;)

So here is the poem by Uncle Joe about Bradley Pigg

I was walking through the cemetery one night,
Reading the inscriptions by the fading light.
There was Gene Brown, and Old Dad Frad,
A host of friends I once had.
Shit Pewee! Shit real big!
For there's the grave of Bradley Pigg.