Teenagers! I shake my head. “Overalls are for farmers!” My mother is happy; since my son is giving me all the paybacks I deserve.
A clear picture, a gorgeous day in Winnsboro, Texas, the month October close to time of the 1968’s Autumn Trails Event it is.
Six years of age didn’t qualify me to get out of the funeral. Stranger, three or five couldn’t either. Walking next to each other passing the casket, my cousin asks, “Where is Grandpa? Isn’t in the box. That man has a suit not overalls on.”
Wondering my cousin shouts out an honest question, “Does only his hands, head and arms go to heaven? How will he walk in heaven?”
For some time anger was all I expressed toward my mother. She made me go to the funeral for he mother. It is hard to wipe out that picture. That is not my grandfather.
My grandfather’s uniform consisted of copies of gray-white striped overalls. Friends of his, the overalls were, with wear and tear matching his birthday suit. Underneath was a blue shirt making it impossible to look improper as many me did.
This uniform served my grandfather well. As a janitor at the high school he worked hard on various jobs. Or, if it was cotton picking time, they served. Many a day I played in a truck bed with other children during cotton season. Sugar cane time put all of us back in the same place but those overalls allowed my grandfather to bring home six or more stalks of fresh cane for my siblings and I to share with him.
Sunday overalls showed no age or wear. Miss. Helen, the next door neighbor, stating overalls were grandpa’s badge plus uniform. Then I stared at her. Get it now. The old saying, “The suit makes the man,” is not far off.
If I could just purge that casket image, “Grandpa you showed me a lot that day at the funeral and the treasured overall days.”
Guess I wanted Tanner to help recapture those days over in overalls.
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