RC: My Personal Legend

Earlier this month, my grandfather, Pawpaw R.C., would’ve turned 89 years old. He died when he was 70. Since then, my memories of him have become increasingly cloudy. I can still hear his hacking smoker’s cough. I should, I copied it often enough as a child. I know how his voice sounded. Can’t replicate that exactly (I haven’t smoked nearly enough cigarettes), but he used to say words like “fire” and “tire” as “far” and “tar,” so I can at least feel the shape of his voice. It helps that the many siblings who survived him spoke pretty much the same way. He was one of 14 kids in his family, and the oldest boy.

Pawpaw R.C. taught me how to mow grass when I was like 4 years old. Showed me how to follow the tire line to efficiently create the pattern. He had a lot of old mowers and had my dad weld on a long metal brake for me. Then, he’d watch me cut the Circle while he sat on the porch smoking cigarettes. Sometimes I got to ride on the big mower with him, me singing “John-Jacob-Jingleheimer-Schmidt,” so I could holler out the “da-dah-dah-da-das” every time we sped down the real steep spot in the yard. I was lucky that we lived next door to one another, luckier still that my family is still living in the same places since then. I think about him often when I mow the same yard now for my grandmother.

He taught me how to do so many other things: the notes on a piano, how to tap your foot along to a beat (thanks to the daily dose of the Jeopardy! theme), how to pee standing up (on a tree in the front yard), to scare the seagulls at the city lake. I think he was most proud of the last one; he’d laugh every time 100 seagulls would fly away and crap on all the cars and the pavement. In front of his friends, too.

He helped teach me how to fish at the pond behind our houses. I have a lot of memories being there with him and my dad. Sometimes Mawmaw would call out from her back porch and wave. I’ve got a couple really good fishing stories to tell you some other time (remind me). These days I use his old rods, lures, tackle boxes, pretty much everything you could need to fish. Seems like most everything he had is still in the basement, a lot that was never used. You could make an argument that I catch his fish out of our pond, but mine are rarely big enough to have been around for 20 years (although I don’t know how long fish live in our pond).

When I’m out there, no phone, no music, just the twitter of actual birds, the squeal of mosquitoes because I forgot to wear Off, maybe some barking dogs, and the faint noise of the highway as steady as the ocean, I feel close to him. I wonder what he worried about. Every time I fish, seems like my mind wanders around. I can’t imagine his did. Can good fishermen be anything but focused? I never knew any side of Pawpaw except the one that snickered often yet was famously short-tempered. That side I know all too well; not because he was quick to anger with me, but because I feel that way a lot. Mawmaw Pat likes to remind me that I have the “Chapman temper” and no patience. “You’re just like R.C. Chapman!” I can hear her saying. (Relatedly, she says she has “the patience of Job”.)

I don’t know if Pawpaw had any fears for the future, or what they might be. Maybe his boats, or his dogs, or his trucks. If my dad is any indication, his worries weren’t very apparent. My dad is most often laid back, accepting of any situation he’s in, doesn’t panic or lash out easily. I try to be like that, I’d say it works best when I’m not doing hard labor (or medium labor, or sweating, or hungry. Could be better, what can I say.) But I know there are many ways we are probably very different, R.C. and I. In fact, I’ve been told as much a time or two by my family. That’s ok, mostly. I try not to stress over it. After being in the ground for nearly 20 years, I’d say it’s a lesser concern of his. He’s busy fishing out of lakes made of milk and honey (or so we hope).

I do often wonder if he would be proud of me, despite any differences between us. I wonder how different I would be if he was still with us. I’d like to think he’d be the same snickering, happy-to-see-me Pawpaw R.C., even if I held some political beliefs that clashed with his. Who’s to say? There are so many men like him in my family, men I have looked up to my whole life, who now are angry at the man I’ve become and how vocally I disagree with them. I dread each return to my hometown, not out of the typical sense of embarrassment or annoyance, but a fear that another bridge will be burned. Used to be I was the one picking these fights, but the last few years I’ve been trying to do better while others did worse. Would R.C. have been offended by my existence as his grandson? Would he have allowed me to be called a motherfucker at Sunday lunch because I dared contradict someone’s argument? Would he be the one calling me that?

Anybody reading this will say “That’s impossible, you’re his grandson!” I hope they’re right. But I had the same hope for my other family members, just to be crudely disappointed. I feel guilty just thinking that Pawpaw might have been just as hateful toward me as any of these other old dudes. But, again, who’s to say?

A few weeks ago, I dreamt of my grandfather. I often dream in a very realistic way, but this was next level. I’ve never dreamt about R.C. this distinctly. It was simple: I was at his house. He was in his chair. I sat on the couch, grown as I am now. I was fawning over him the way I imagine the disciples fawned over Jesus when he returned. I just kept telling him how happy I was to see him. I hugged him and can still feel his flannel, with his glasses in one pocket and a pack of cigarettes in the other. His stubbly cheek against mine, sharp. I could even smell him in my dream. There are few dreams I am sad to awaken from. I wish I could replay this one.

Another thing Mawmaw Pat always says about Pawpaw R.C. is that he never smiled in pictures unless it was with me or some fish he’d caught. He always told me I was his favorite grandson, which was funnier before I got stepbrothers. He still said it anyway.