Pappy

I came home from school one day and he was sitting at the kitchen table. Mom was across the room leaning at the counter with a weird expression on her face, one I wasn't familiar with. Even as a child of about eight, I sensed a cautious withholding, like they were sharing a good joke or secret. She said, "Jean, this is my friend and you can call him Pappy." "He brought us a pumpkin!" I never heard such a name and instantly though it comical, I blurted out "Hi ya Pappy, nice pumpkin, okay bye!"

I was a hyper kid and had no patience with grown-ups and was anxious to go back out the door to the neighborhood to play.

This scene repeated itself once a year for the next several years. Always around October, a small pumpkin would appear alongside a thin, quiet, smiley, boyish-looking older gentleman, settled back in his seat resting his chin on his hand, eyes twinkling with an imperceptible smirk of delight on his lips as I breezed in-and-out saying "Hi ya Pappy, where's the pumpkin? Okay bye!"

I never knew how long his visits were and didn't notice a car or anything, but he would be gone by the time I came in again. I wouldn't know, at that age, to ask how they knew each other or why she had a friend older than her. I had other concerns outside where my friends were, and my bike, my trees, and my river.

Not until I was about eighteen did I think to ask Mom about him. "Hey Mom, what ever happened to that man, Pappy?" She replied, quite nonchalantly, "Oh he died…and by the way, he was your grandfather." I said, "WHAT?" "Why didn't you ever tell us that was your father??" She said she was afraid we would tell Grammy T. Her mother didn't want anyone in contact with him, was her explanation.

After learning of his passing and after the shock wore off some, I still didn't learn more. I didn't have the questions I have now. Where did he live? What did he do? Did he have another family?

Lora had mental illness issues and could cause Prudy great heartache. Lora told her only daughter no one was to communicate with him and she destroyed all photos but one that shows only half his face.

A precious tiny thumbnail photograph of Harry, half his face smudged out, squatting down holding a three or four year old Prudy in front of him, on the porch of their home in Brighton. He was kicked out not long after that shot was taken. There was some indication he was a gambler, a golfer hustler maybe, where he would sometimes have money only to lose it.

Prudy could not risk us kids with a secret nor risk Lora finding a current photo of him. She was that afraid of Lora's unsteady and volatile disposition, behavior never displayed in front of us. Sadly, Mom giving him the name "Pappy" will forever be an inuendo that was beyond my young person's Intellectual grasp. Maybe she hoped I'd figure it out. I searched for him amongst websites and cousins to at least find one clear photograph of him, to no avail. A picture of him as a child or teen, whatever was out there, but have had no luck. Will he be forever, our grandfather, the invisible man?

Thinking of her life, one day, Lora futilely pronounced to Mom, she wished she had stayed with him. I'm so very glad Prudy finally reunited with him and bonded once again as father and daughter. I'm not sure if my brother remembers him and my sister would have been too small, but I have an uncapturable snapshot of him in my mind. Maybe because he was nice and had a funny name, all I know is, every year I must acquire an October pumpkin.