Last Tuesday we went to visit my Granddaddy’s sister and her husband that we hadn’t seen in almost twenty years. It’s hard to get together and keep up when we live so far apart. I mean they are all the way out in Snellville. That’s almost an hour! Really, we have no excuse for not getting together with them more. When I was young we spent a good deal of time at their house. Other times we would all meet at The Varsity. We saw them a good deal.

This time, I have to admit I was a little worried about seeing them. It had been a long time. They were older now, Aunt Margie is 80 & Uncle Joe is 87 years old, and I wanted to keep the memory I had of them. In my memories they were laughing, happy, joyous people who were fun to be with. I didn’t want to have that memory changed by seeing them old and feeble. Well, no problem. They are older, yes, but feeble? Not hardly.

We had to meet around lunch so Uncle Joe could get back from volunteering at the food bank, which he does a few times a month. He volunteers at two food banks. This particular one he works at so he can pick up a former co-worker that probably wouldn’t get out if not for him. 87, and worried that he needs to help someone get out more. I asked him at one point about feeling so good at 87. He said “Just don’t stop! Keep going! If you stop, you may not get started again.” He and Aunt Margie shared stories, wisdom, and laughs with us as we tried so hard to capture some of what they said.

At one point she said “If someone doesn’t write the history of the family down, it disappears.” She’s right. So much is lost if it is not captured in pictures, video, or audio. Heck, you could even write it down, but who does that anymore? Someone should.

We heard Joe talk about things she said he has only began to talk about in the last few years. He went into the Navy right after high school, too young to enlist but fibbing about his age so he could go and fight for his country. He lost most of his hearing while manning his gun on the ship. That gun was located right under the cannon, and while defending the ship against a kamikaze attack, with the guns firing, the cannon booming, and the loudness of the plane crashing into the deck his hearing was damaged severely. He lost a lot of his friends. It is a hard memory for him, one he most likely would like to let go if he could. He served at the same time as my Grandfather, but in different places. I thought about him specifically yesterday, on July 4th, and wondered how many just like my Uncle Joe are sitting in some home somewhere alone with those memories. How hard that must be.

There were many lighter moments and stories too. We heard about how they take the grand kids to downtown Atlanta to ride elevators. They go to the tallest buildings and ride to the top to see what can be seen from there. They do hotels, office buildings, and even government buildings…until they are kicked out of those. They go on trips, and are probably in Florida or have just come back now. They want to go out west this fall.

On living…”Just don’t stop! Keep going! If you stop, you may not get started again.”

On your attitude…”Don’t let the bird of paradise poop in your soup!”

On being too serious…”Drop your pants and slide on the ice!”

We sat for over 3 hours and talked, laughed, and remembered. I could have stayed for 3 more.