PoPo

I know this is hardly the reason the three of you reading this still visit this modest space. But I hope you will indulge me. As I said, my grandfather, or PoPo, passed away last Thursday. His funeral is tomorrow. And in advance of my eulogy, I drafted a few quick thoughts that I think can serve as my blog post in honor of him. Thank you.

Good morning.

I greatly appreciate you all taking time this morning to celebrate the life of the man I called PoPo. I hope you will all indulge me as I take the next few minutes to reflect on his life as seen through MY eyes.

Many people are defined by what they choose to do for a living. As most of you know, PoPo was a WWII veteran and he retired from Ford after over 30 years at the Lima plant. But he wasn’t defined by his job and I believe he could have been almost anything.

First and foremost, I think everyone in this room knows that PoPo could have been a stand-up comic. I know you ALL heard this one. A guy walks up to a boy at a gas station…the boy is sitting with a dog. The man asks if the boy’s dog bites. He says no. The man goes to pet the dog and the dog bites him. The guy says to the boy, I asked if your dog bites and the boy says, that’s not my dog. Comic genius. A joke for every occasion. Yesterday as people came to pay their respects, I can’t tell you how many people said something about PoPo’s sense of humor or his predilection for being ornery. He certainly could have been a comic.

If he didn’t want to be in front of the camera or in front of the crowd, I think he still had a job in the entertainment industry as a movie critic. Movie critics don’t like anything. And I know for a fact that PoPo hasn’t liked a movie since Julie Andrews was gracing the fake Alps in the Sound of Music. He even had the personality trait to sit through movies he didn’t like. I remember a time he and MoMo went to the Wapak theatre to see what they thought was a movie with the late, great Walter Mathieu set on a cruise ship. What they saw instead was a disaster of a film with Cuba Gooding Jr…set on a cruise ship. He and MoMo sat through the entire movie without saying a word…but as they left the theatre, they turned to each other and asked, “Was that the movie you thought it was going to be?” If his son could eke out a career as a sportswriter, he certainly could have been a movie critic.

Writing may be in the genes, but the gambling gene just MIGHT be passed down in our family as well. You know it’s bad when you send your grandchildren to the venerable Zip Stop for some scratch-off bingo tickets and the person behind the counter says, “Are you Wig’s grandkid?” I also learned betting on horses from PoPo. Well, at least $2 win tickets on his friend's horses. And when they went to Vegas for the first time, I have never seen someone so mesmerized by the nickel slots and so happy to have jet black hands from the oft-handled coins.

In Vegas, I personally witnessed another possible occupation for my PoPo. Foodie or food connoisseur. We took he and MoMo to a “fancy” restaurant in Vegas called Hugo’s Cellar. It has all the touches…women get roses, they put cheesecloth on your lemons in the iced tea so the seeds don’t get in your drink. They had everything. For your salad, they brought a cart to your table filled with well over 20 items they could put on your salad. The dialogue between the waiter and PoPo went something like this: “Sir, would you like shrimp?” “No.” “Garbanzo Beans?” “No.” “Radicchio?” No. “ Beets? “What did you say? Beets. Oh. No.” And so on. At the end I think he had just lettuce and cheese. But not bleu cheese. That cost extra at Brown’s and PoPo didn’t like it when you ordered bleu cheese.

Motivational Speaker. There’s a completely embellished story floating around about me hiding behind a furnace one year when it came time for baseball try-outs…but my favorite story proving PoPo’s Dr. Phil tendencies involved my dad playing baseball when he was younger. Much younger. There was a pitcher throwing pretty hard. I think dad was slightly intimidated. PoPo yelled out, “Stand in there! He won’t hit you!” As I recall, dad, there was a trip to the hospital and a cast that followed. But hey, PoPo got dad to stand in there.

I asked my brother what his favorite memory of PoPo was yesterday and he answered, “Ohio State football games.” I found that hard to argue with and after having season tickets for so long, I think PoPo could have easily been a stadium docent. I mean, nobody talked to more people in C-Deck than PoPo. And everytime we would hike all the way up those three never-ending levels he would ask someone if they installed the elevator yet. Every game. PoPo, they installed those elevators and I am firmly convinced you were the reason why.

Finally, I think everyone knows PoPo could have easily been an Advertising Executive. I mean, everyone has seen those commercials that were modeled after his life. The commercials may have featured Scandanavians, but we know they were based on PoPo. You know the ones, where complete strangers were brought together all over a pack of Mentos? Yeah. Clearly ripped off his life story. If there’s someone in here that wasn’t offered a piece of candy by my grandfather at some point, they’re in the wrong church because you’ve never been in the same ZIP CODE as PoPo. On the way to an aforementioned Ohio State game, the traffic was slightly worse than trying to make a left turn on Defiance and someone let PoPo in. As he got off at Olentangy River Rd., with thousands of rabid Buckeye fans desperately trying to get in to see the game, PoPo stopped the car in the middle of traffic, unbuckled his seatbelt and walked back to that man that had let him in and offered him a Mentos. THAT was my PoPo.

Yes, he could have been anything he wanted to be.

But what he WAS, was a loving husband for over 50 years to MoMo…a proud father to dad and Mark…a father figure to my mother…a loving brother to Gene and Harold and a true family patriarch to many in this room. But most importantly to me, he was the quintessential grandfather. He attended as many of my basketball games as he could (even when it was just to watch me clapping for my teammates from the sidelines). He knew the path to get ice cream and could get there with his eyes closed. Was always willing to take my brother and I to any county fair we desired.

But what I will always remember most about PoPo was how comfortable and how loved I felt in his presence. There wasn’t a place in this world that I felt more “at home” than at MoMo and PoPo’s. No matter what was happening in my life, I knew there was a safe-haven on Glyncrest. And one of my greatest joys was watching my kids, Audrey and Sidney, take to their great-grandfather the same way I had. It didn’t matter what PoPo looked like, whether he was in a wheelchair in his later years or whatever, Sidney was immediately drawn to him. She felt that same comfort, that same love. And I promise I will do everything in my power to make sure she remembers that about her PoPo and to ensure Audrey knows how lucky she is to have met her PoPo for even such a brief time.

He could have been anything. But today, I thank God he was my PoPo. I love you.