I’ve written a little about my grandfather since starting to routinely blog back in 2008. I’m almost appalled by how truly little I’ve said about a man who truly was my maternal family’s roots – - and the foundation from which many of my most vivid childhood memories have sprouted, branched, and bloomed.

Admittedly, I know very little about the man as a man. I know him as Poppy. He sometimes called me Lil’bits. He loved me unconditionally and supported every endeavor I made, no matter how insignificant it might have been or how far he had to travel to celebrate it.

I remember a lot of things about my grandfather. Things that might not have given him a glorious obituary; things that weren’t even mentioned in his funeral eulogy.

I remember…

…traveling cross country behind his Mitsubishi Eclipse in my ratty, antique Accord. Mimi had gotten walky-talkies and repeatedly chimed “Where are you? Keep up. Hello?” as Poppy flew through traffic and dodged road debris with seconds of potential impact. We – my Mom and I – hit each obstacle. We turned off the walkie talkies. He road in luxury in a new car paid for with cash. We sweated in my used tank with no air conditioning in the desert heat, spitting out bugs and dust and dirt flying at us from the open (yet airless) vents and the wide open windows. He’d stop our travel at dusk each evening, renting a hotel room and finding a restaurant to eat in. One such restaurant (somewhere in the Midwest between Kansas and California), was apparently a local favorite. It was next to our hotel and had an old fashioned country charm, complete with a store for homemade treats and fashion. Our quartet passed through the open shop doors and stood in front of the wooden hostess stand and were greeted by smells of cornbread and fried chicken. It was heavenly. The small restaurant area already had every small round table filled with diners, so the oddly expressioned hostess sat us at a table fit for King Arthur (and all his knights) were he to have preferred rectangles. We sat awkwardly at one end of this huge table. The remaining half dozen seats remained unoccupied; even when subsequent guests entered, they waited for the small tables to clear. Mom and I exchanged nervous glances as we realized we had inadvertently created a “colored” table during their dinner rush. Poppy insisted to our waitress that someone could sit at our table, but she shrugged off the idea. He seemed genuinely oblivious to the growing separation between us and the other guests.

…he came to my high school graduation. He sat on that cold metal bleacher as the rain fell harder and harder through the ceremony.

…he entrusted me with his film SLR and all those fancy gadgets he’d acquired when photography was his part time passion and developing was his expertise. He laughed at me when I called sobbing in misery and believing I had broken his camera, saying through chortles, “You’ve flipped up the mirror, just push the release.”

…he smoked outside because Lil’bits had asthma and would be sickened by the smoke. In the rain, in the northern chills, in the snow, he stood on that brick stoop brushing away raindrops and wringing away pricks of cold as white breathe mingled with smoke in his every exhale. And I never heard him complain. He subsequently quit when the taxes per box increased a few more pennies than he believed was economical, but that deep, guttural throat clearing cough never left him.

…he laughed often, though you hardly heard it. Like Muttly on the Hanna-Barbera cartoons, his chuckle was a silent hehehehe barely noticeable except for the rise and fall of shoulders and the broad smiling mouth.

…he took me once or twice to the airfield near his home. We watched the amateur pilots take off and land on the small strip of runway.

…he liked cartoons in the morning and news for the rest of the day. Many a morning, I woke to Thomas the Train on his television – - loud whistles of the rail yard urging me from slumber. He never paid for cable. TV was supposed to be free. And coffee? Dark, strong, and caffeinated (even though Mimi switched to decaf and secretly poured it into an old canister for years). He liked Coke, never Pepsi. Butter, not I-can’t-believe alternatives and never margarine.

…he grew tomatoes… and every other vegetable possible, transforming his backyard into a farm. Rinds of fruits and vegetables were for the compost, and he churned that steel container often. I remember most those tomatoes. I’ve never much liked them unless they were already turned into ketchup or sauce, but that toasted bread, tomato (lightly salt and peppered) and butter sandwich he made me once was heaven. The pasta sauce he made and jarred was incredible, too, though I think a preservative of some sort might’ve saved us the minor bout with dysentery we suffered after consuming it. He loved that garden. And he hated the bugs that attacked his veggies in the evening. So he took a flashlight and an umbrella and sat guard over his crop all night despite the drizzle, dark and cold. The bugs didn’t stand a chance at life against him.

…he loved my Glamour Shot photo – - a silly portrait with my 15-year-old self looking far older in a leather jacket, styled hair, and make up. It was the only personal photo I’d ever seen in his basement office. It was lovingly placed next to the poster of the voluptuous boobs with a smiley face sketched across them. I might’ve giggled at that poster once in my childhood, but it was so insignificant – certainly not a focal point in a tiny space filled with ham radio equipment, computer parts, floppy disks and dusty paper files. Man that space was claustrophobic. It was hot when Mimi ran the dryer just outside its door, and I always came up itching. (Mommy swore the no-see-’em fleas were afraid of Poppy’s blood).
…he held my hand as we walked across live volcanoes on “The Big Island,” the heat of the angry earth warm against my sneakers. He soothed my fears and willed me to sleep while I panicked about Pele’s wrath coming should I close my eyes in our hotel room.

…he made it a point to get Lil’bits her White Castles whenever we came to town. It was tradition. It was mandatory. It was love.

…I remember.

So many more vignettes play back through my thoughts at random intervals. He’s been gone 11 years – - some of the most transformative years of my existence.

And yet what I remember of my Poppy is only a small part of who he was.

He never talked about the purple-ribboned-metal drapped across a framed certificate that set on the mantle of stone fireplace he never lit. He didn’t contribute to or entertain discussion about the hooplah we created when we happened across his Red Cross journal he’d written and sketched in while a war prisoner in Germany’s war. He didn’t discuss the bullet wounds or gashes from when his plane was struck after he saved a fellow pilot from an enemy fighter. He did, however, keep out (and show off) photos of his girls that he placed prominently on a credenza in the formal dining room. He talked visitors through Mimi’s refrigerator photo gallery. But with his grandkids (and, I suspect, his daughters), he never discussed his time as a pilot. He never talked about those commendations. Though he was passionate about his photos, he never showed off the images he’d captured (or that were captured of him) while he was overseas. And I never inquired about his time as a Tuskegee Airman.

A lot of essentricities about Poppy begin to make sense as I study the “Tuskegee Experiment.” His experience in the war – barely a man at 19 years old, but mature enough to seem much older and a natural scholar and quick study, he was able to perfect his duties. And it’s his sense of duty – of realizing the tremendous responsibility of his tasks as a lieutenant – that made him the great pilot and soldier he was.

History class lessons about World War II would’ve been fascinating had I known, had I been privvy to his first-person accounts. But Poppy was no braggart. He was a simple man who didn’t trust insurance or doctors or banks.

As such, I’ve cheated my own children – the first, born months after his passing – out of a history we should be most proud of, that of our grandfather as hero. I’m changing that now. I am inspired to make his brief history as a fighter pilot, as a groundbreaker for African Americans, a living part of our consciousness. He’s much more than my Poppy, he’s also an American hero.