The Dog Father

I've posted about my father a couple of times. This Father's Day I'll tell you what comes to mind when I think of my Pop.

Winston cigarettes. The red and white pack that was always present in his shirt pocket. No lighter, there was always a matchbook tucked inside the celophane. He quit smoking after Ma found out she had cancer, but I still remember. None of his kids smoke except me, and that's just the occaisional cigar.

The big blue and white Chevy Scottsdale pickup truck. The truck before that was a blue and white Chevy too. The blue vinyl interior that smelled of dirt and rust and sweat and nicotine. The two gun rack in the back window, and the white cross-bed toolbox behind the cab.

Pumpkins. Most years we would plant an acre or so of pumpkins and sell them in the yard before Halloween. He always did most of the work, but let me keep all the money. Watching him in the yard was how I learned to sell, he was a master. The year he passed away I had moved away from home and he still did the pumpkin thing. After he died I loaded all those pumpkins up in the big trailer, hooked up to the old blue truck, hauled them an hour away to Greenville and sold 'em to the local grocery stores there. I haven't grown nor carved a pumpkin since.

That's pretty much it. There are a lot of little memories: Change and keys on the end of the table, yelling out the window at the dogs to keep quiet, a 6oz Coke and M&M's at the country store, but those are the big things that I really associate with him... I guess I always will.

Happy Father's Day Pop. I miss you.

We all do.