Eulogy For A Very Good Man

What's A Paw-Paw?


(Yeah, I know the proper spelling is "Peepaw," but try explaining that to a wide-eyed kid with a fishing pole who's never been a very good speller)

I called into work last night to tell my manager I would need a few days off to tend to a personal matter. My manager happened to be off, so the young supervisor on duty took the call. When asked for a reason, I answered without a moment's hesitation:

"Paw-Paw died."

Which was followed immediately by silence on the other end.

"What's a Paw-Paw?"

Followed immediately by silence on my end.

I guess having known all my life what a Paw-Paw is, I'd never really thought about it much. I figured that once you had one, you just always knew what a Paw-Paw was. I mean, how could you not? But upon further thought, I guess not everyone is lucky enough to have a Paw-Paw. So after stumbling through a rather brief and not at all fitting description of a Paw-Paw to the young supervisor, I hung up the phone and thought about it some more.

What exactly is a Paw-Paw? Turns out the more I thought about it, the more I got the feeling that these thoughts just needed to be put down on my computer so it wouldn't nearly be so hard to answer that question when I'm asked about it in the future. I even did a Google search, but all I could find out about Paw-Paw was information about a town in Michigan and an obscure fruit, neither of which had much to do with the Paw-Paw I knew. So how are people like that young supervisor going to know exactly what a Paw-Paw is unless people like me sit down in front of a paper with pen (or a computer keyboard) and tell them. So that's exactly what I decided to do.

The first thing you learn about Paw-Paws when you are really, really young is that they're tall and they live in big houses with lots of dogs in the back yard. They collect pickup trucks and campers and recreational vehicles and boats and trailers of all kinds which they use to travel all over the country. They love to tease you and do stuff like pulling their false teeth out to get you to stop sucking your thumb. They try and make you eat spinach and don't get too mad when you don't make it to the bathroom before you throw up. They don't even get too mad when you put their pickup trucks into reverse and roll them down the driveway into the street or hide their beer until it gets too hot to drink. Other stuff you learn when you're young are that Paw-Paws love to make really silly squirrel calls and feed them nuts right out of their hands when the critters come right up to the back door of that big house. They love to get up really early in the morning (before the sun comes up, even!) and make coffee and listen to accordion and fiddle music on the radio. And they simply laugh when you ask them why the man on the radio is talking in some bizarre Cajun language. Of course, Paw-Paws talk in that language around you also. Usually around Christmas and your birthday.

But the most important thing you learn about Paw-Paws when you're really young is that they love to go fishing. Well, okay, more specifically, they love to go fishing with you. You lay awake all night in the sofa bed in the living room and don't get any sleep because you fear you may miss that one-of-a-kind, all-time bestest sound of all really really early in the morning sounds: the sound of a Paw-Paw walking down that long hallway between his bedroom and the kitchen in that big house on Choctaw Drive in his slippers. It's a series of sounds you dream of even when you're home in your own bed; the 'flip-clip-flip-clip' noise those slippers make as they move between the carpet and Paw-Paw feet - then the "swish" of the swinging doors to the kitchen (did I mention that Paw-Paws just love those swinging double doors you just never see anymore?) and the 'flop-clop-flop-clop' noise Paw-Paw slippers make when the finally move from the carpet to the tile floor. And when those sounds come really early in the morning, they mean that maybe, just maybe today will be a fishing day! It's not always a fishing day, of course, and on those days you just stumble back to the sofa bed trying your best not to cry, knowing that for sure that tomorrow will be a fishing day. Because, by their very nature, Paw-Paws can't go without fishing for two days in a row.

On those best of all early in the morning fishing days, Paw-Paws toil in the kitchen making sandwiches and preparing for the trip while you watch for the weather reports on TV, crossing your fingers so it won't rain. In between the cartoons, of course. Then you help pile all the fishing stuff into the truck or boat (if you're really lucky) and try your best not to fall asleep on the way to the where you're going to fish because, of course, you stayed up all night listening for Paw-Paw slippers.

Yes, Paw-Paws love to fish. They also love to bait hooks. They love to untangle your fishing lines. They don't complain too much when they spend more time in their tackle boxes looking for lures to replace the one you just lost than they do putting their own lures in the water. They especially love to patiently listen to you try and explain how your hook ended up in their arm instead of in the fish. They don't get even the slightest bit mad or upset when you holler "I skunked Paw-Paw!" at the top of your little lungs in the middle of a cypress swamp because you caught a two-pound bass and they only caught ten one-pound fish. They even believe you when you tell them you got scared and lost the stringer of fish because when you went to pull it out of the water there was a snake eating one of them. The only thing they do get upset about when you are fishing is when you start counting the number of beers they drink. Oh, yeah, Paw-Paws love drinking beer when they fish. Just remember to agree with them when you get home and they say they only had three. Or else tomorrow might not be a fishing day.

Those are just some of the things you learn about Paw-Paws when you're young. As you grow older and the world grows more complex, you learn to appreciate other things that define a Paw-Paw even though they may seem to be less a part of your life. Paw-Paws fight in wars and have to be separated from their families for long periods of time. They are teachers, public servants, ambassadors of goodwill to those in other countries. Paw-Paws stay happily married for more years than most men are alive. They raise fine children and gain great respect from those in their communities. They drop their daily concerns to travel great distances to be at important events in your life. Paw-Paws live extremely long and fruitful lives, and when their time is finally over in this world, a great many people whose lives they have touched, in return, drop their daily concerns and travel great distances to be with their families as they are laid to rest. Thus is the spirit, of family, of community, of the relationship between the generations that has existed from father to son to father to son since the dawn of man, defined.

My Paw-Paw is named Yves Dupre and he was a very, very good man.

So This is a Blog, eh?

Press a couple of keys here,
One or two mouse clicks there,
And everyone this side of the New York Times
Knows your name

Or whatever name you give yourself....

Link to this site,
Post on that site,
And soon you are mentioned in Variety
Or Entertainment Weekly

Or at the very least, Google Blogsearch...

Doesn't much matter what you type,
Or how drunk you are when you type it,
Ol' AndyW seems so out of date
It's not the minutes that count

But the number of hits...

So, here's to everyone in the internet age
And those who have fifteen minutes
Simply because they have nothing better
To do with their time than write

And have millions of fellows who have nothing better
To do with their time than surf...

RWG (who has spent way too much time doing both)