Today is the 125th anniversary of his birth.

Here my Granddaddy is with me on the wonderful front porch he built himself. He is in his Sunday suit and looking very handsome with that great shock of white hair.  The stuffed animal sitting in front of me is a crocheted mother kangaroo with a baby joey that my daddy sent from Australia where he was deployed.  I seem to be singing, probably “Waltzing Matilda.”

And here he is many years later next to that same front porch showing K and E a bird nest in the wisteria.

I remember so many things about him.  He always polished his Sunday shoes on Saturday nights and always dressed up for church on Sunday mornings.  Otherwise, after he stopped wearing his postman’s uniform, he always wore long-sleeved khaki shirts and khaki pants during the week.  I remember one Father’s Day, Mother bought him a short-sleeved dress shirt and he commented that this was the first short-sleeved shirt he’d ever had.  I wonder if he ever wore it.

Yesterday, was a beautiful drizzly fall day, so Dave and I headed out to find a put-in up on the Clackamas.  As it turned out, this location proved elusive until late in the day.  Still, the company was congenial and the scenery was spectacular, so we decided to follow the advice of this riverside sign:

Shortly after that, we found ourselves at Mike’s Second Hand Store in Estacada.  I bought a couple of pieces of glassware but decided against the two pieces of art below.

You can’t really tell in this shot, but trust me, our lord looks completely stoned.

And this one had been seriously marked down:

He was such a handsome cowboy.  Sad to think that in his second term he was already suffering from senility and was guided by his wife (whom he always called “Mommy,” which really creeped me out) and she was being guided by her astrologer. But I digress.

We did ultimately locate the put-in we had been searching for and agreed that it was too late to unload the boats.  It was down in Milo McIver State Park.

We’ll go back soon and do it right.  At that point, it was time to take the Molalla route home in order to stop by our favorite place El Charrito’s  for a little Mexican food to keep our strength up for the drive back home.

As a special fall treat, I got a hummingbird feeder for my upstairs window.  I thought it would take a lot of patience, waiting for a tiny Anna’s to find this hidden location.

Just a few days, as it turned out.

The Pecos Swim Club is selling Krispie Cremes for a fund raiser today.  Do you have any idea what goes into getting fresh doughnuts to a remote location like Pecos, Texas?  Joannie drove her extra-long Suburban to Lubbock in the middle of the night and loaded them up.  Mmmmmmm.  I’m thinking she needs to be on guard for car-jackers on the way home. 

He loved birthdays.  Written on the back of this shot in Mother’s handwriting, it says “43rd   birthday cake.”  That would make it October 12, 1944, and I would have been about eighteen months old.  He has on his Oklahoma Highway Patrolman’s uniform.

I believe all my other grandparents lived well into their nineties, but Papa died young.  He had four granddaughters, but I am the only one who got to know him, to sit on his knee and listen to the silly songs he sang.  I was only ten when he died, but I remember so many things about him — he was tall and handsome and proud and sentimental. He carved sweet-smelling cedar into interesting things with his pocket knife.  He brought home giant candy canes at Christmas time.  He gave me a little rocking chair that I still have and a dollar bill that he slipped into my hand that last time I saw him.

I am sentimental. Just like him.