One of the things I will remember most about Pappaw is his hands. By the time I arrived, he would have been in his mid-fifties, and his hands were already weathered and worn, but he remained kind and gentle. His hands had done so much hard work on his family's farm growing up, followed by his service with the CCC, and of course, the war. His hands would pen letters to my grandmother during the war, using code to let her know where he was stationed. In an era when "loose lips might sink ships," they wrote each other and would casually mention a fictitious neighbor, whose initials revealed the first two letters of the country he was in. During World War II, they often wrote about Bill Underwood, whose initials were code for Burma. My favorite war story, though, was what Pappaw did upon receiving news that the war was over. Although he never drank after he returned home, he did celebrate the occasion properly at the time. Having knocked a few back, ...
Sarcastic adventures abound.