Memories of Papaw Bill, as told by Dave Dubyah
Well, for starters, this is not the blog post I've been meaning to write for 3 days. That was going to be an unpublished journal entry. But since my parents are here, and since today my dad told a story about my grandfather which I hadn't ever heard, and since I never knew him (my grandfather) but have always loved him with all of my guts (and my heart), and since I've done his temple work and I know he has accepted the gospel, and since the story is fresh in my mind and I can't sleep anyway, well, for all of those reasons, this post needs to be written...now.
I guess I should explain the title first. If you're a southerner, or a Louisiana (Loos eee anna) person, you don't need an explanation. For the rest of you, it is this:
Several years ago I started wondering what I'd call my grandfather (William Droddy) if he were alive. I decided I'd think of him as "Grandfather Bill". Then I realized that "grandfather" would be too formal for a backwoods Louisiana guy, so I shortened it to "papa Bill". Then, while reading some stories my great-aunts (his sisters) had written, I was reminded that folks in LA call their parents "papaw" and "pipaw" (Or "mama" and "daddy". It's just a southern thing). It was then that I realized my grandfather would've been "Papaw Bill". So that explains the first part of the title. And Dave Dubyah? That's just my dad's name...David W. (pronounced Dub-yah by the southerners in my family) Droddy.
Anyway. The story.
The story goes like this:
My dad was a teenager. His brother, Uncle Drew (aka Isaac Andrew), was young--maybe 5 or 7. Their family had arrangements to go to Vermont with neighbors over Christmas break. They would be staying at an old farmhouse that belonged to their neighbor's friends. For some reason, their friends left earlier and were at the farmhouse for a couple of days before the Droddy family arrived. When my grandparents got there, they discovered that the "farmhouse" was being renovated; my dad remembers it as being gutted, with a small kitchen that had only an old wood-burning cookstove. My family's friends, the......, had no idea how to use a wood-burning stove to cook with. They'd been eating canned food (directly from the cans, I think) for a couple of days. My dad remembers his dad firing up the stove, adjusting the heat output, and cooking some kind of a "feast" for dinner. The only food dad is sure Papaw Bill made was biscuits. I'm not talking little, hard, dry, yucky biscuits; I'm talking Lousiana's Best homemade buttermilk & lard biscuits; the same ones made by my great-Pipaw, Catherine Ashworth Droddy, who lived in the backwoods of Singer and cooked on a wood-burning cookstove--in the LA heat & humidity--her entire life.
Yup, that's my family. I'm pretty darn sure I woulda loved 'em if I'd known 'em, too.
I guess I should explain the title first. If you're a southerner, or a Louisiana (Loos eee anna) person, you don't need an explanation. For the rest of you, it is this:
Several years ago I started wondering what I'd call my grandfather (William Droddy) if he were alive. I decided I'd think of him as "Grandfather Bill". Then I realized that "grandfather" would be too formal for a backwoods Louisiana guy, so I shortened it to "papa Bill". Then, while reading some stories my great-aunts (his sisters) had written, I was reminded that folks in LA call their parents "papaw" and "pipaw" (Or "mama" and "daddy". It's just a southern thing). It was then that I realized my grandfather would've been "Papaw Bill". So that explains the first part of the title. And Dave Dubyah? That's just my dad's name...David W. (pronounced Dub-yah by the southerners in my family) Droddy.
Anyway. The story.
The story goes like this:
My dad was a teenager. His brother, Uncle Drew (aka Isaac Andrew), was young--maybe 5 or 7. Their family had arrangements to go to Vermont with neighbors over Christmas break. They would be staying at an old farmhouse that belonged to their neighbor's friends. For some reason, their friends left earlier and were at the farmhouse for a couple of days before the Droddy family arrived. When my grandparents got there, they discovered that the "farmhouse" was being renovated; my dad remembers it as being gutted, with a small kitchen that had only an old wood-burning cookstove. My family's friends, the......, had no idea how to use a wood-burning stove to cook with. They'd been eating canned food (directly from the cans, I think) for a couple of days. My dad remembers his dad firing up the stove, adjusting the heat output, and cooking some kind of a "feast" for dinner. The only food dad is sure Papaw Bill made was biscuits. I'm not talking little, hard, dry, yucky biscuits; I'm talking Lousiana's Best homemade buttermilk & lard biscuits; the same ones made by my great-Pipaw, Catherine Ashworth Droddy, who lived in the backwoods of Singer and cooked on a wood-burning cookstove--in the LA heat & humidity--her entire life.
Yup, that's my family. I'm pretty darn sure I woulda loved 'em if I'd known 'em, too.
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