90 and Counting

My sweet Papa turned 90 today.  I have been thinking a lot recently about him and all of the memories I have visiting him at his farm in south Georgia.  I get to go there to celebrate!!!

Isn't he the cutest 90 year old man you've ever seen?  Papa taught me how to drive in his old blue Chevy pickup.  I remembefr riding on the John Deere tractor about the time I could walk.  We would eat watermelon out of the garden, corn from the fields, pecans off the ground.  He used to push us around in the wheelbarrow after picking up sticks.  He'd spend hours pushing us on the swings he made in the backyard.   I remember him tickling my neck or feet with his rough fingers.  I think he still has an old round windup clock by his bed. 

I loved going out back and standing with him while he burned trash in the old barrel.  I always thought it was so cool to help him take down the laundry from the clothesline - how fresh to have sheets and towels dried in the sun. He could fix anything and he was always fixing something.  He is really good at peeling apples and pears and peaches.  Granny tells him so every time she asks him to do it. 

He is so patient.  He loves babies.  If there's a baby around, he's probably holding it.  I have only found him to leave the farm for one reason: to see his grandkids.  A vacation for fun?  he'll decline.  If we're invovled, he's there.  He came to my graduation last December even when it was 6 degrees and snowing in Utah and he detests the cold and traveling. He had a smile the whole time.  He always wore a baseball cap and his work khakis.  I remember him always sweeping the garage, even when he came to visit us.  He's always working, doing something productive.  I admired his love for reading.  We gave him so many books over the years, he's got quite the library. 

Summer trips to the farm always included the Braves games on tv and he was always the one to test whether the hand-churned milky way ice cream was finished and he would declare if it was time to stop churning.  There were always walks to the pond to check the spillway, trips to the Heath Pond to see what the beavers had dome to the dam this time.  Walks down the dirt road to the railroad tracks where he'd point out deer tracks.  Watching him open new pajamas each Christmas.... with many more memories to come!

Happy Birthday Papa!!