My Pop-pops used to stay up all night and nap all day. I knew him mostly on vacations, when I'd sleep over my Granny's house or be staying in her country place upstate during the summer. - Different times - off times, when being up at night could be part of the norm. My most vivid personal memory is of his waking me in the middle of the night to go see a skunk that was passing by outside. He was urgent about it, excited. Even then I giggled at the absurdity - but I got up! And I marveled at that skunk. ...Come to think of it, I think it was the first I'd ever seen.
We lost my Pop-pops during a time in my life when death almost seemed the norm. It was a bad run, - my mom, my 20 year old aunt, cars, freak crimes and tragedies, etc. The day my step-mother told me my Pop-pop died, I remember one tear and a kind of "...is-what-it-is..." thought bouncing around my tired vacant 9-year-old brain.
Now I think back to the kind of man he was. Surrounded by woman, (one wife, two daughters) smiling all the time. The kind of man who's family actually owned "Granny's" country house - who'd worked it his whole life. The kind of guy who would be told by his women that two eggs a day was not good for him, just before he walked down to the bar (2 miles away) for his 5 o'clock daily martini especially when they got on their kicks about not giving him the keys.
To this day cigar smoke triggers a familiar vivacity, an occasional burst of energy - a force that wakes me in the middle of the night to go outside and see what's there.
I can relate to Pop pops. I even have the Graves disease probably in through his side of the family. I'm not skinny like he was (because the other side apparently taught me how to eat!) but the hyperthyroidism wakes you. It can make you anxious. And tired. And sad.
Of all the people I've lost I feel him the most. He had haunts. He had loves. All of them I share.
My wife and I have a song - one I played for my Granny today and told her I'd always wished she could really hear the words. (Granny's hearing is not what it once was). Granny related the title of a song Pop pops had said was their song. It was an obscure song that never made it big, so she usually can't remember the title. Earlier this week, she said she looked up and said 'Oh come on Zip [Pop pops] and help me out to remember' and that's when it occurred to her. She's told me the story before and I'd looked up the title she'd given but somehow couldn't find it. Tonight however, I did find it. And I was able to play it for her and order her the record. It was 1946 "One More Tomorrow" by Frankie Carle and his orchestra - with a woman singing? There we sat head-to-head, ears and hearing aids, arched around my iPhone playing a You Tube video sporting a pic of a red 78 vinyl, tears running down both our faces. It was dark. Didn't matter. Kids laughing and playing all around us were not even aware the different kind of moment we were experiencing. So much goes by so quick if you don't stop. And tonight I'm up, listening to it again… kind of even looking for a skunk.
