Papa has always been the giving type. He is the most generous man I have ever known. I know that sentiment is shared by most people who know him.
For nearly 30 years, he took our whole family to Sunday morning breakfasts at the local diner. We regularly made up as much as a 15-top. He always, no discussion, picked up the bill, having let us order whatever we wanted and was known for taking care of his favorite waitresses.
He bought me my very first car, a red-so-sun-faded-it-was-pink beater 1986 Jeep Wagoneer, the one with the wood paneling.
He has always given away gas station and restaurant gift cards and cash for birthdays, holidays, and the occasional just becauses.
Recently, he entrusted me with a button box that he spent a week’s pay on 60 years ago. He knows that I am into music and play the ukulele, so he hopes I will tune it up, learn a bit, and give it to my nephew when he is old enough.
Papa has 15 grandkids. Ever since I can remember, he has kept the office in his house jam packed with school supplies. As kids, we would go over to his house a few weeks before school started, and he would load each of us up with double bagged brown paper bags full of everything we needed for the school year. If the teacher’s list said a 12 pack of crayons, he gave us the 64 count box. If it said a pack of No. 2 pencils, he made us take three packs…and a set of mechanical pencils…plus a sleeve of extra lead.
To this day, even with all of his grandchildren out of school, he still keeps the cabinets fully stocked of school supplies to give away to his great grandkids, neighbors, restaurant hostesses’ kids, and any anyone else who needs them.
It is probably because of the school supplies that I have always considered Papa as one of the earliest supporters of my writing. He gets credit for some of my first written words, my particularity over “left handed pens,” my manual pencil sharpener phase — which just resurfaced again this past year, and my lifelong affinity for notebooks.
As I have gotten more into writing as an adult, I fill notebooks, post-its, my phone notes app…pretty much anything with ideas. These are all good mediums, each for different reasons; but recently, I have been hung up on the idea of getting a typewriter as another means with which to write.
Come to think of it, Papa just might have a typewriter. It seems like the right kind of old something that could be buried in the back of his narrow, stuffed-to-the-brim breezeway closet.
If he has a typewriter, I would like to see if it still has some life left in it.
The sound of the clanking keys would be added to the all the sounds I have ever associated with him in my memory. Him starting the engine of his old cars, the go carts running laps in the dry patches of grass in his front yard, the four square ball bouncing on his driveway, his raspy voice calling me “Kirby,” and him cracking open a can of Pepsi.
The smell of the fresh ink would compliment the olfactory collection of all the scents I have ever known to be his. The fried chicken and joes joes, that musty breezeway, his classic Old Spice cologne, diesel fuel, and toaster strudel, my 10-year old self’s go-to breakfast those few months my family stayed with him while our house was under construction.
If he has a typewriter, a story of a life lived like his would best be told through it. The mechanisms are simple yet sturdy and reliable, the process classic and intentional. The story itself, true and lasting.
Papa turns 83 today. When I call to wish him a happy birthday, I am going to ask him if he has a typewriter. If he does, I know he will not mind giving it away.
Update #1: 07/31/2022
When I called to wish Papa a happy birthday, I asked him if he had a typewriter. He did. I asked him if I could use it, of course he said I could.