land, ho!
my father grew up in a country crossroad that when i was a child seemed like the prettiest little place on earth. he spent his first 17 years growing tall and fishing in wooded ponds, later working in the shop where his father sold Fords. when Daddy died, my brother told a story i had never heard. that when Daddy was working in the shop, my grandfather asked him to change the oil on a car, which he dutifully did. only he forgot to put new oil back into the car he was working on. so instead of inheriting the family business, my grandfather decided the boy who would become my daddy would be better off fixing people than fixing cars. so he sent my father to medical school.
i spent my childhood going back to my father's home, visiting my grandparents for a week during the summer. there is so much i remember about the place. the back yard swing where my grandfather used to push me into the sky. the storage house that smelled of moth balls but held a thousand treasures. the garden where we used to dig for potatoes and pick butter beans. the old shop, where we would sit in the showroom cars, turning the steering wheel and blinkers, then get cold cocolas from the old stoop-shouldered machine.
our visits also included 'going to ride,' which meant driving down quiet farm paths so my grandfather could check the crops growing on farms he had owned for some time. to my knowledge he didn't plant the rows himself, but he was overseer. one summer, he took friend Lydia and me down the path to see the largest hogs we'd ever seen in our lives.
over the years, as we headed to and from the beach, i would try to point out that farm but could never quite find it. then a couple of years ago, Daddy asked us to go back.
though my grandparents have been gone for years, he wanted us to see the landmark of their legacy — the three small farms that are now leased, the land worked. Daddy wanted us to know where they were, so we would not forget.
so we drove down country roads to the familiar places of my childhood and his. the first farm stands between my grandparents' burial place and their house, and that spring, before the crops went in, we could see their breakfast room window from their graves.
and then down another road and a surprise. a family cemetery i had never seen, where my great-grandfather Moses Byrum is laid to rest. i still can't figure out why i never knew it was there.
and then, back to the farm where those hogs once grew, an expanse of winter wheat waving at us along the short drive toward the old house and barn. i watched, as Daddy's eyes scanned the horizon, the circle of land his father owned that now belonged, in part, to him. And i wondered what would become of it.
turns out, Daddy knew.
a few weeks ago, as we headed to the beach, we made a couple of stops with the kids. first, to the family cemetery where their great-great grandfather is buried. then on to the farm where as an 11-year-old, i had tried to pet a few gigantic pigs.
the kids took pictures, as i recounted my last visit there with their grandparents, Daddy in his favorite yellow sweater, Mama telling me how she tried to convince my grandfather to be more progressive and put indoor plumbing in the tenant house, almost 60 years before.
my siblings and i now own this farm with my aunt, my father's sister. Daddy gave us this land in his will. which i have to say was a big surprise. we did not expect anything... and though i always knew he loved this farm, i never imagined he would entrust its future to us. cityfolk though we all are.
i don't think i have ever owned anything outright. maybe a toaster. a book. a pair of shoes. but not land.
land.
as i write this i don't know quite what to say. even after close to 25 years in our current house, the bank still owns a small part. cars? all loans, though one is coming close to being paid off. i know people who buy cars with cash, but we have never been able to do that.
but cars are not the same as land.
land.
the thing that drew the Israelites from Egypt and
kept them going,
the thing that kept Noah and Christopher Columbus in the boat, kept Scarlett O'Hara from losing her mind. (well, maybe not.)
it is a small plot, considering.
but it is ours. and it is land our father loved, and our grandfather before him, so there you have it.
we often joked in years past that we would one day own a third of a half of something — this land — just about enough to put a lawn chair on so we could watch the sunset on a summer Sunday afternoon.
guess i didn't count on it actually coming true. and now, though i am pretty sure where the sun will go down on a summer Sunday, i am wondering just where Daddy would want us to place those chairs.
susanbyrumrountree.com is the original work of author susan byrum rountree. all written work and photography is copyright protected and can only be used with written permission of the author.
summer sentence
it is on the third day
that the words come back,
letters long absent
from your page,
but as you figure out how
not to spill the water
as you pour it into the
rented kitchen's coffeepot,
there they are,
stretching ahead of you
like line to a new boat,
and you grab hold
of that line
and hold on
because you know
what's coming
finally coming,
so you think twice
about the pink sunrise
you saw just a bit
ago
as you scramble the eggs
and scratch the grandog's nose
butter your toast
and serve up breakfast
for your kids who
are almost never
under the same roof
anymore,
and you think
some more
as you
butter yourself up
for a stretch out
in front of the ocean,
when you
will crack open
that new book
because you've already
read two
in the past days
as you listened
to the ocean
talk to you
for the first time
in many, many months,
you catch yourself thinking again
that you are
relieved
that the first book
is done because
you feared
so for the woman
and the boy
in that story,
and you found yourself
weeping at the end
of the second one
because you could
imagine how the man
and his wife, and
the girl
all felt
at the end of that one,
and yes,
you think still more
as you listen
to the churning
of that blue ocean
and watch
the pink-tutued baby
next door dabble
in the saltwater puddle
at her feet
and remember when
the daughter sitting
by you
with a book
in her hand
was just that size,
doing just that thing,
dabbling,
trying to
carry
a small bit of wave
in her tiny hands,
when you first brought
her to this beach...
so you take
a short walk
in and out
of other people's vision,
those
lining to beach
propped under
a kaleidoscope
of umbrellas
watching
the gulls,
the tattooed
girls,
lanky
boys
skimming
the surf
with their boards
and you wonder how they
can keep from
falling,
and you peer to see
what other folks are reading
on iPads and phones and
in actual books,
like the weathered woman
sitting where the seafoam
laps at her feet
who is in the final pages
of a good book about dogs,
so you walk on
and find yourself beneath
the pier,
and at once you recall
your
grandfather's
knotty
fingers
cutting blood worms
with an old knife
on the splintered pier bench
then plying
the bloody bits
onto a hook
for you
to cast
over the side,
and you think
how many times you
watched the water
and felt the tug
not knowing whether it
was fish
or foam
but you pulled it in
surprised
at
seaweed
or silver fish
biting,
and as you think
of those times
all those years ago
you remember
your father's thin
tanned fingers as he
stood on the pier
and slid his serrated
scaler on the surface
of the fish,
the fingers of his other hand
holding tightly to the
surprised
mouth and fins
of the spot
or bream
as scales flew
in every direction,
and you think of that summer
when he grew a beard
and you didn't like
that at all
or how that year,
the beach didn't
seem to soothe him
like it always did,
and on your way back
you look out over
the sea and the foam
and think of
how many times
you
walked this beach
with your dad
and how this
is your first
time, really,
without him
being here for
even a day or two,
when you are
and there you
are, making new
prints in the
moist sand
without him
by your side,
and as you make your way
back
you
wonder who
that girl was
so long ago who
that her daddy
loved so, so much,
then you spy your children
sitting there
by the sea,
your son's fresh beard
irritating you
just about as much
as your daddy's did,
and you
think how
many more stories
there will be
to tell of this place
even though
daddy can't
sink his
narrow
toes
in this
sand
anymore.
as writemuch.blogspot is the original work of author susan byrum rountree. all written work and photography is copyright protected and can only be used with written permission of the author.
of happy hearts and glorious things
as a child i used to sit on the living room floor, slide out the bottom drawer of my parents' secretary until the brass pulls clicked softly against the wood. inside the drawer were treasures — baby books for my siblings and me, old photograph albums showing my brother, sister and me as babies, and a creamed-colored book with gold-leafed edging that contained evidence of my family's beginnings.
it was my favorite — my parents' wedding album — and i would spend hours studying the photographs of the day my parents pledged their troth to each other. my mother, striking in her ballet-length crinoline, my father handsome in his white dinner jacket. they stood with their back to the camera in the center aisle of a church the likes i had never seen. large stone columns stood sentry as my brim-hatted grandmothers, my dapper grandfather and dozens of family and friends gathered around them.
they looked like teenagers, holding each other's hands as the young rector gave God's blessing over their union. (within 10 years, this same man would become bishop of the Diocese of North Carolina. would confirm my brother, my sister and me some years later in our home church.)
i studied the sepia images — the lights hung from the ceiling, the carved fretwork over the pulpit, the stained glass windows, stone floors and marble altar, those stone arches standing watch, protecting them from what lay outside the walls. and as i studied, i wondered what it might be like to sit in a church as grand as that.
when i was 32, the sepia photograph faded into my reality, and i came to stand myself in the stone aisle of
, feel the grasp of those arches and knew i was home. my husband and i had just moved our young family to winston-salem from atlanta, where though we attended church most every Sunday, it never felt quite right.
that first Sunday morning in Winston, we rose, not questioning where we would go. we set out early — getting to church in atlanta took 45 minutes — and arrived for the 9 o'clock service before the early service had even let out. our five-minute commute left us time to head back home, grab some coffee and start over again, and we marveled at our good fortune. on our return trip, we still arrived early enough to take the kids to Sunday School and the nursery, so the two of us could sit for an hour in peace.
uncertain of this new pace and space, we walked into the back of the church and there it was, the picture i had studied all those years ago. the place where my parents got their start, where i first became a twinkle in God's eye. and that's when home hit me.
that first day, the teacher in my 5-year-old's sunday school class invited us out for hot dogs. in the weeks after, we joined the young families supper club, even hosting it at our house. so easy it seemed to make friends, when in atlanta i struggled to make two close friends in four years.
but here, i wrote essays on my mornings at home, took the dog to show and tell at preschool, walked the baby with my next door neighbor whose son was the same age as mine. it was on the way to st. paul's that one day i found myself singing alone in the car: oh i feel so very happy in my heart, because i was.
we would be there only 18 months.
the day we found out we would have to move, i came early for preschool pickup, walking into the darkened nave so i could spend a few quiet moments under those stone arches. i found my pew, kneeled, begged out loud for things to be different, for God to let us stay... we had just really gotten started in this place where it seemed so easy to
be
. i cried a bit...might have even screamed in the empty space, but i can't truthfully admit that now.
the arches didn't seem to hear.
we moved, started a new life, found a new church that has become more of a home to me than St. Paul's ever was. my daughter barely remembers her time here, and my son not at all.
but still.
///
ten days ago, we were in town for a family wedding. finding ourselves with an idle hour or so, i asked my mother if she'd like to go to her old church. it would be her first trip there in 61 years (61 years and two weeks, she reminded me.) so we drove up the meandering hill toward the church, and i almost lost my way.
'it's that way,' she said, pointing, never minding that she was 24 years old when she last made this trip.
the stone bell tower stood right where we'd left it, and i hoped that a June saturday meant the doors would be open, though when we checked they were locked. we took a picture of her in front of the bell tower anyway, talked about that day so long ago in her life, then slowly made our way to the car.
just then i spied a man, keys jangling from his belt, slip out the side door. i approached, asking if there was any way we could get inside, and he pointed to the door he would happily unlock for us.
'take your time,' he said, slipping away quickly as we walked into the narthex. mama edged her walker onto the stone floor of the nave and stood, taking it all in.
at just that moment, the organ shouted through the stone, "Glorious things of thee are spoken," and i couldn't help it, the tears just came. i watched mama, her own eyes wet, but her mouth forming a smile.
///
my husband and i have a habit when we visit churches of slipping into a pew to say prayers for our family. from the corner of my eye, i saw him edge into a pew in the front. (didn't he remember that we always sat in the back?). i didn't want to leave mama, so i motioned to her to move down the aisle toward the pulpit.
she shook her head no, held onto the frame of her walker, listening.
"glorious things of thee are spoken/Zion city of our God; he whose word cannot be broken/formed thee of his own abode; on the Rock of Ages founded, what can shake thy sure repose? with salvation's walls surrounded, thou may'est smile at all they foes."
as i listened, i thought about all my mother had seen of this world from her last day in this church — her wedding day — to this one, the day her grandson would be married. i imagined what she might be thinking of that life well lived, the heartache she must be feeling without my father by her side this time. my family began on this particular rock, and God had formed it as he saw fit, and in my thinking, though Daddy isn't with us physically anymore, the fit was just right.
there is a line later in the hymn that says:
safe they feed upon the manna, which he gives them when they pray.
my family has prayed plenty, has seen plenty of manna in its time, and on this day both my mother and i felt full to bursting with it.
'i'm ready to go,' she said, just as the organist ended hymn 522 and moved on to another. as my husband helped mama, i walked up the aisle to about the fifth row on the right and took to my knees. i asked for blessings on my nephew's new marriage, just as God had given my parents so many blessing they'd begun to feel first in this place. i asked for guidance, for blessings on my children and gave special thanks for my family gathered to celebrate, when for so many weeks we have felt so little joy. and i thanked God for this moment with my mother, etched forever in my mind like the stone arches of this beautiful church that was built the year my parents were born.
'tis his love his people raises over self to reign as kings: and as priests his solemn praises each for a thank offering brings.'
glorious things indeed. amen.
susanbyrumrountree.com is the original work of author susan byrum rountree. all written work and photography is copyright protected and can only be used with written permission of the author.
a toast to a happier time
a year ago today, my entire family gathered in the great room of a rented beach cottage to make a toast. to the day, 60 years before, when what would become our family took root. on this, my parents' 61st wedding anniversary, i say thanks to God that we had that time together, however fleeting. it's been a bittersweet week, remembering where i was when i took the pictures posted here. thinking of the quiet chats my father and i had each day, when he climbed the two flights of stairs to see what we were up to. strolling together down the rickety pier behind the cottages to see if any fish might be biting. sharing a meal and talking about his life. just watching him watch his grands and great-grands. marvels to me.
my parents' dance is over, sadly, but today i just want to be happy that they took that first dance together long ago.
Save the last dance
They met in the hallways of Baptist Hospital in Winston-Salem in the fall of 1951. Not long after, the skinny young man in the white coat asked the wavy-haired Florida girl if she would like to go to a med school dance with him.
Two weeks later, he asked her a bigger question: Will you marry me? And on June 14 the next year, she did.
And the day after that? He graduated from Bowman Gray School of Medicine. All the family was coming anyway, so what better time to get married than the day before you become a doctor?
My mother often said Daddy didn't want to go to Louisville (the location of his internship) alone. So she went with him, and two weeks shy of their first wedding anniversary, my brother joined them in their little apartment with the Murphy bed in the wall.
In those early years, the young Byrums would not often be together. Mama moved with my brother to live with my grandparents, whom she had really only met a couple of times. Daddy joined the Navy, spending his days in the cramped infirmary of a destroyer, tending to the medical needs of other young men his age. He has a certificate from that time that says he crossed the Arctic Circle.
When he came home, they moved to Newport, Rhode Island, then back with my grandparents. Daddy left again, and while they were living apart, my sister was born, the story of her birth a favorite of my grandfather, who drove my in-labor by the hospital entrance because the February fog was so dense.
When my father left the Navy, they looked around for a place to settle down and found a spot just an hour from my grandparents. Within a year, they had a house and another baby — me — Daddy tending to the needs of patients who would come to him for the rest of his career —more than 50 years.
I wrote about them last year
Little has changed except they are moving a little slower, but I marvel at the fact that my parents continue to grow closer today as each day passes.
This week we have gathered — 23 of us (with two pending) — to celebrate the fact of them and their 60 years together, and that what seems to us to have been a hasty decision back in 1951 has turned into a pretty remarkable life.
Each day someone new has arrived to join our celebration. Grandchildren. Spouses. Great-grands. Earlier in the week, we even gathered in a nearby gazebo to toast the newest union-to-be, all of us weeping after my nephew proposed to his girlfriend. What a joyful moment for us all.
Mama has enjoyed sharing the story of how she met my dad with each new face. Daddy checks his watch and asks who is coming next. By this afternoon, we will all be in place, and we have a few special things planned for them to mark this day in our family history.
Last night, Daddy stood before supper and thanked us all for coming, and for being who we are. He said he was proud how we are living our lives, and though he and my mother could not take credit, they would like to.
Well.
"There was more I wanted to say but I have forgotten!" he said then, tempering the tears that had formed at the corners of all of our eyes with the subtle humor he is known for. I watched Mama sitting in the chair behind him, looking up at him, her blue eyes sparkling.
"Would you like to go to the dance?" he asked those years ago. My mother has never felt she was very good at dancing, but when my father took her in his arms that fateful night, somehow she stayed in step. For 60 years. Imagine.
Happy Anniversary B&Pop B. May the dance continue.
©susan byrum rountree, june 14, 2012.
writemuch.blogspot is the original work of author susan byrum rountree. all written work and photography is copyright protected and can only be used with written permission of the author.
of dogs and dads
one morning in late january, just after daybreak, i strapped on my good boots under my nightgown, grabbed my coat and took the dog out. it was a brisk morning, and the dog's paws crunched on the icy driveway and yard behind my childhood home, and i figured i could, with a treat in my pocket, keep the dog from traipsing too far afield without his leash. it was the country, after all.
nose to the ground, he plotted his track across the same yard where my siblings and i had worn a circular path years before as we drove my daddy's ford around and through the wiregrass, trying to learn how to drive, the same stretch where my brother and his friends practiced the perfect dunk shot. the dog peed and pondered, trotted and thought, until i saw the hairs on his back stand on end.
the dog is part yellow lab, but it was the beagle in him that shouted at that moment, a long howl toward dogs in the acre next door. so here i was, in my fancy boots and gown crunching through the yard after him — past the old well where i used to sit when i contemplated running away from home — hoping these strange dogs would not bite me or him and would let us go our own way.
when i was a child, dogs roamed the whole town. no leashes. no dog fights that i can recall. we knew all the dogs (and the few cats) by name and personality, my favorite (other than our own dogs) being margie, the st. bernard who plodded all over our neighborhood with not one single enemy, dog nor man.
our dog Trouble was more than once found running through the halls of our elementary school, the doors of which were always open in warm weather. i remember looking up in the middle of my class, seeing a streak of copper running past the door. Trouble, looking for one of the three of us, at a time in our family when it was important for us to be together. i think he stole someone's lunch before most likely my brother caught him and called the woman who was looking out for us while my parents were away, to take him home. i picture addie now, in her blue VW bug, Trouble's red-tipped tail wagging through the window as they headed home.
the downside of all this freedom was the fact that we lost at least three dogs to the highway in front of our house.
but on this crisp morning some 40 years later, i'm chasing my suburban dog in my nightclothes through the crunchy grass into the yard of neighbors i don't know.
the three canines dance around each other, taking to trees and bushes to mark their spots. i of course am whisper screaming, come! cheese! (our emergency word!) now! (it is, after all, just shy of 7 a.m.) and not once does he turn his head.
after one last sigh onto a bush, he trots back into my parents' yard, past the remnants of my old sand pile where we buried the ashes of Bogey the beloved first dog i owned as an adult.
Bogey's favorite place besides at home with us was in my parents' back yard. rumor has it that he even fathered a puppy or two in his spry years when visiting. ever the country girl, i let him roam a little then, holed up as he was in our small city yard. my mother, in between dogs at the time, snagged the shaggy, collie-colored pup from her neighbor and love him quickly and completely. Shag sometimes came to visit his suspected father, though the two never quite acknowledged each other. Shag was an escape artist, wriggling out of our fence more than once when he visited, and not too many months went by before mama lost him to the highway, too.
then Bogey died, and the only place i could think of with any permanence was my childhood back yard. and so we went, the
Book of Common Prayer
in tow, to say goodbye to him. i thought at first my father might see a ceremony over the dog's ashes a bit ridiculous, and i was surprised when he joined us in the yard, weeping, even, over this good dog he had grown to love, too.
(as an aside, a few days after Bogey died, i sat down in the early morning hours and wrote a goodbye to him. i sat on that story for a few months, then with pounding heart sent it off to an editor at the N &O, a stranger to me but based on his columns i knew he liked dogs. 'who wants to read a story about a dead dog?' my husband growled. (this was 10 years before Marley and Me... even i didn't know if anybody would.
would become my first published story in a dozen years, and for weeks afterward, letters came to the mailbox at the street, the writers telling me how much my story, and their dogs) had meant to them. 10 years later, Marley made history. such is my luck.)
we are that way about dogs in my family. just love them something nutty and think everybody should. and between us we've had a lot of them: Chester. Lassie. Sir Walter Raleigh. Trouble. (Zorro & Remus, the lone cats.) Macon & Moe, Deacon and Mr. Biggles, Gypsy & Molly... well Molly not so much. Shag. Bogey & Socks. Now LRR & Bailey, Scrappy & Ruby. even my friend's dog, Sookie, i love her, too.
my sister-in-law reminded me the other day that while she and my brother were on their honeymoon, my sister and i found an Irish setter to give them for their wedding present. they pulled up in the driveway with a u-haul carrying all their wedding gifts from Delaware, and we placed a copper-colored puddle in their laps. it seemed like the most natural thing to give them a dog. no matter that my brother was in medical school and my sister-in-law was working... every respectable married couple needed a dog. and there was none more perfect than one who looked just like Trouble. they named her Macon. and what a good dog she was.
the next year my sister married, and she got a chihuahua named Moe (whom the cleaning lady always called Mo-ah!). Moe lived to be pretty old himself, lost an eye and had a hip replacement, the vet frantically calling my sister when she was visiting north carolina, saying the dog would die without the surgery. she had no choice but to keep that dog going. years later, she now has two.
my parents' latest dog Ruby — a regal king charles cavalier — stole my father's heart as soon as she arrived all the way from iowa, free for the taking. Ruby rarely left Daddy's lap in the past couple of years, and on the rare day when he could talk in the hospital, he always asked about her. in his absence, she sits by his pillow on the bed.
+++
bogey, socks & LRR... as seen by artist
LRR our third dog in 31+ years, inherited like so many from a college son who couldn't take care of him anymore. we still had dog #2, Socks — a gender-confused collie mix with chronic health issues — when LRR came to live with us, my mother's day gift of '08. his presence forced Socks to live to 14, hard-headed as she was she would NOT give up her spot as queen of the house. Puppy used to grab hold of her feathery tail as she walked into the kitchen, and she would drag him across the floor, which he thought was great fun. not so for the big dog.
now Little Ronald Reagan — i call him Pop Pop, because we called him Puppy for too long and his given name, just does not suit — rules the house. i adore him, despite the fact that he ate shoes and deck furniture and water hoses before i discovered doggie day care. though he should be, he is no fan of water, probably because he fell off the back of the sailboat one early spring day when the Skipper was at the helm and i was home, but he loves to sail.
and he escapes, much like on that winter morning at home a few months back, taking himself for a walk to his girlfriend's house down the street, usually when my husband is not quite watching.
the other day i visited the doctor and learned my blood pressure was high, when in late january, it had been normal. the slow climb likely began february 6 and continued to climb for those 75 hospital days and my mother's fall and then Daddy's homecoming. nothing else has been normal. why should my blood pressure be?
i came into the house that evening, and my husband had a directive:
'you need to sit down with the dog,' he
said
, and i knew immediately he was right. in all these weeks i have been running...to work, to hospitals, to grocery stores, to home, to my parents' home and back again, trying to take care of so much when pretty much everything within my grasp is out of my control, in all this time, i have had little time for my pup. worried he would have to spend too much time alone, i dropped him at day care on my way out toward whatever the day held, bringing him home, both of us bone tired, restlessly resting until we were at it again.
in this past month, i have been trying to replace what was our new normal with just normal, and some days it works. we have finally gotten back to our Friday walks, to days like today when he sits at my feet as i write.
on other days, it's harder. i'm sad. i'm worried. i have fleeting moments when i don't think about what's happened to our family in the past few months and feel guilty for it. i have had trouble concentrating on anything, especially writing. am trying hard to remember every single thing my father ever taught me, and too often my memory fails.
but he and my mother taught me to love a dog. and what a gift that has all been in my life.
susanbyrumrountree.com is the original work of author susan byrum rountree. all written work and photography is copyright protected and can only be used with written permission of the author.
guest blog: Pop B's pencils
a note from writemuch: my nephew John Jenkins wrote a post for this blog last summer, on the occasion of my parents' 60th anniversary. While Daddy was sick, John came to visit and stopped by the Scotland Neck house on his way to the hospital. Here, are the lessons he found in that short visit.
Pop B's Pencils
by John Jenkins
I stopped by Scotland Neck before the last time I saw Pop B at the hospital. It was just me, my mom, sister, niece and aunt writemuch. Sometime during lunch, I decided to walk around the house I've explored thousands of times since I was born. I am not sure why I decided to do this, but it sure helped.
I discovered something pretty funny. At least I thought it was funny. Right on top of Pop B's keyboard was a tiny pad of paper, and a pencil. On top of that pencil, like most pencils, was an eraser. Pink as a newborn, and so obviously unused, the eraser sat on top of the white pencil and looked more like a decoration than anything. That struck me as humorous at the time, but did not seem like an observation worth sharing. But then in every room I knew Pop B spent time in, I kept seeing these pencils.
P
erfect looking pencils. They weren't the pencils I used throughout school, eraser worn at the top or sometimes even nonexistent. His pencils almost looked elegant in an odd way.
But now as I look back at that short visit to my grandfather's house, I think my pencil and eraser observation reflects Pop B more than anything else I could think of. He was so cautiously perfect in ever single way throughout his life. After 84 years, he had to know that he was never going to make a mistake drastic enough to use the other side of that pencil. But there the eraser sat—just in case. Pens— now those are for the reckless and mistake-prone people like myself. That's why my papers have always looked like a crazy, mistake-ridden mess. Marked up, crossed out and confused. Pop B wasn't any of those things. Ever. The notes he took on the songs he was learning on that keyboard weren't like that, his conversations weren't like that, his life wasn't like that. And that's rare. His notes were as eloquent as he was. Pop B was well spoken, easy to follow, helpful.
He had
no need for any of that flashy stuff. He didn't need to impress anyone with his presentation because his delivery, his accomplishments, his whole life really, spoke for itself. Navy veteran, beloved doctor, even more beloved father, grandpa and great-grandpa.
Another thing I noticed during that exploration of his home was his pictures. Of course he was in some, always seemingly nodding in approval of everything going on around him and everything he helped build. But what was on display most was his beautiful and headstrong wife, his uniquely gifted children, and his whole mess of grandchildren. This set up was also how Pop B seemed to live his life. Not once was it ever about him. Whether it was spreading health among Scotland Neck or spreading his Atticus Finch like knowledge to us grandkids, it was never about him. It was how what he learned and what he knew could help us every day.
And that brings us back to the pencils Pop B has left behind at the house. I know I won't be needing one, because Pop B's influence is certainly never going to be erased.
susanbyrumrountree.com is the original work of author susan byrum rountree. all written work and photography is copyright protected and can only be used with written permission of the author.
masters at it.
daddy loves golf. is not very good at it, but years ago, when a group of men formed a small country club a few miles outside of town, we no longer had him at home for Sunday dinner.
i don't know if he had every played before the club started up, but he played most weekends when he was off. i am not athletic, so i never took it up, but i remember playing once with him, taking about 30 strokes to get to the hole, then putting what felt like a long way to me to to the hole on the green, and sinking it.
but what i remember more was sunday afternoons when he was home, and i watched golf with him.
daddy went to wake forest when arnold palmer was there. they didn't know each other, but when i was growing up, Arnold felt like family. he was one of us, a demon deacon, about the same age as daddy, and whoever was playing in a tournament that week, well, we were pulling for arnold. it was just right.
daddy and i last watched the masters together with any vengeance in 1980. i remember sitting in our family room during those final moments as seve ballesteros sank the putt that would win it for him, and i actually said to daddy: i wonder where i will be during next year's masters?
that master's for us was one more benchmark that another year had ended — the long winter over and new life just about to begin.
that spring, i was hoping for some sort of new life myself. i was searching — just a year out of college — for i didn't know what. after graduation, i'd found a job at a small daily newspaper, but as a photographer, not as the writer i longed to be. so when the job grew stale i pulled together my pitiful resume, typing it out on my trusted olivetti, sending it out blindly to the n&o, the atlanta paper, charlotte, anywhere to get myself out of eastern north carolina. i'm sure if i could find it now i would be embarrassed.
that summer of '80, i called (yes, people actually called other people in those days) the placement office at the j-school at carolina, asking if they had anything — i might even scrub floors to get out! — i could apply for.
oh, yes, said the woman on the other end of the line. a classmate of mine was working in augusta as a feature writer, and her department was looking to add a writer.
augusta. my mind thought back to that sunday afternoon in april when i'd watched the tournament with daddy and it felt like fate. the azaleas! the green lawns! the clubhouse! what fun!
i whipped out the olivetti and banged a new resume out, pulling together the very best clips i could find. (aka those with as few typos as possible) put a stamp on it, dropped in in the mail and prayed.
some days later, i got a call from the editor. could i come for an interview?
three weeks later, there i was, a working writer on my first assignment. wouldn't you know the husband of the woman i was interviewing for my story had once been an assistant football coach in my home town?
(a side note, though this i not part of the story: i met a rakish reporter my first night there. a year later we married, celebrating at a reception in my parents' back yard.)
that next spring i found myself standing in the clubhouse at the master's, and there they were, all of daddy's friends: arnold palmer in his hot pink golf shirt, gary player, jack nicklaus. even sam snead. all of them close enough for me to touch. my job that day was to report the color of this storied golf tournament, and all i could think of was the story i would tell daddy when i got to see him next.
that afternoon at sunset, i sat with my editor on the front lawn at augusta national, gin and tonic in hand soaking in the sunset on one very pinch-able day.
+++
when the hospital speech therapist first put the speaking valve on daddy's trach she asked him what he like to do now that he was retired.
'read. play golf.' he said.
'what kind of golfer are you?' she asked.
'not a very good one,' he said.
on saturday, daddy and i watched the masters together again for the first time in a very long time. as the old guard — player, palmer, nicklaus — teed off to open the tournament and new names took their places on the greens, i asked him if he remembered that day in 1980 when we watched balesteros don the green jacket. he shook his head, and so i reminded him, then shared my story of the 1981 clubhouse crowd once again.
'i think tom watson won that year,' i said and his eyes told me he didn't believe i could remember it right after all those years, so google answered the question for us.
on sunday, when adam scott sank his putt in the pouring rain to win this year's event, i was back at home, imagining daddy's eyes glued to that sudden death putt. it was among the most memorable tournaments in master's history, the pundits all said the next day, and it was indeed. but for very different reasons to me.
daddy's old clubs are collecting dust in the storage house that holds all of his tools and the blue wagon he used to tote the grandkids around in with the riding mower. though he has not played golf in a good long while and he has a newer set, these are the ones i remember.
tomorrow daddy comes home, a place he hasn't seen for 67 days.
i think about his homecoming, and in my mind, i can hear the crack of the wood against the ball, see it soar through the air toward a perfect line drive. hear the whir of the golf cart as he heads up the fairway to take that next shot toward the green.
writemuch.blogspot is the original work of author susan byrum rountree. all written work and photography is copyright protected and can only be used with written permission of the author.