Planted like a tater!

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

I'm writing this with an unopened bottle of Liquid Sledgehammer near at hand.

It won't remain unopened for long, for today is marked on my calendar.

My grandfather, rest his soul -- a Maxwell of the Clan Maxwell, descended from Ulster Scots, known also as Scots-Irish -- survived much in his lifetime.

He started mining coal at nine years of age.

His father, the short-tempered Sullivan Maxwell, had at least four wives and produced thirteen sons, and I honestly don't know how many daughters.

Sullivan Maxwell had a Morgan horse and a fine Meyers saddle.

He rode the township with pints of whiskey in one saddlebag, and quit claim deeds in the other: in the depths of the Depression, five hundred dollars was a young fortune, and when he'd ply a dirt poor farmer with whiskey and tell him there was coal underfoot but too deep to do him any good, he'd pay five hundred dollars cash money for the man's signature on a paper granting the mineral rights to some company he'd never heard of -- well, the money was good, it was for something the farmer could never reach, and men signed eagerly.

Granddad started mining coal at nine years of age because boys could work coal seams too narrow for a grown man to work. He described laying on his side, swinging his pick sideways to cut the coal seam.

He fell off a coal tipple at sixteen years of age and broke his back: he lived the rest of his life in chronic pain, but it did not stop him from raising a family, from farming, from moonshining and moonrunning and working mechanic's magic on motor vehicles and internal combustion engines of all kinds.

Granddad always had a considerable garden: he would knock together a cold frame every spring, he'd sprout his taters in the miniature hothouse and he'd plant potatoes on St. Patrick's Day, every year, even if it was in a cold frame so subsequent frosts wouldn't kill his sprouting efforts.

He died of old age, an old man full of memories and a rotten sense of humor, and we planted him like he planted his taters.

We planted that fine old man on St. Patrick's Day.

I sit here with a bottle that will soon be opened, a bottle that will last me well more than a year, a bottle from which I will pour a libation:  I will raise it and salute the memory of the man I still miss, a man of wisdom and laughter, a man with magic in his hands, a man who could do more with a rounded screwdriver and a wore out pair of slip joint pliers than I can do with a well stocked toolbox.

Here's to a man who would appreciate that we planted him like a tater on Saint Patrick's Day!

[Loophole LaRue, SASS #51438]

I can only hope that my grandsons remember me as vividly and respectfully as you remember Maxwell.

 

Slainte!!

 

LL

[Singin' Sue 71615]

Awesome tribute.

You sir, can bring 'a picture in my mind'...

I saw your family...the giant beasty, the farm houses...

The young boy on his side in the dark, pick glinting.

[Blackwater 53393]

I hope to be remembered as fondly!

 

 I too raise a toast to my paternal grandfather!  He taught me much!  And to yours!!

[ChiefO]

Great write up. My grand dad was the best friend I ever had. 

[Sedalia Dave]

I spent more of my time awake with my Grandpa and Grandma that I did with my parents. They influenced my life in so many ways. Miss them both. 

[Tennessee Trapper Tom]

As a descendant of Bruce Farthing, bummed about the cancelation of the highlands, and going to miss my conversation with others from the Bell clan. I Salute you Sir. My your libation bring peace to your day.

[Duffield, SASS #23454]

Your grandpa sounds a lot like mine.  

[Riverdog]

Well Done! I'll have one with yee in remembrance of our Grandfathers- Long live their memory!