Pap Pap

He had many names.

I called him Pap Pap.

He had two sons whom called him Dad.

His friends called him Steve.

He named my dad Stephen D. Jr. so that he could be Stephen D. Sr.

But his name wasn't really Stephen D. or even Stephen Demetrius.  His name was Stefan Demetrius and he hated it.  So he changed it.  Well, not with forms and probably not legally because that's not how he did things.  But he changed it.  At least he had a birth certificate.  My grandma never got one.  I always figured that she had "lost" it because it proved that she was a few months older than Pap Pap and not almost a year younger, but when my parents found Pap Pap's birth certificate, they also found Grandma's application for a birth certificate that she had filled out, but never filed.  Since she was born on an Indian Reservation, she didn't get one at birth, but it looked like she thought about getting one sometime later, but never got around to actually doing it.  Like Pap Pap and his name.

I got the phone call that Pap Pap had died when we were driving back from our second trip to Houston.  We were stopped at a Dairy Queen in some little town past Dallas because we were driving right into the setting sun and I couldn't see anymore.  I figured if we stopped for 10 minutes or so, the sun would drop below the horizon and I would be able to drive better then.  I knew he had been in failing health, sleeping all day and all night for a while.  I knew it was going to happen.  I still cried and then Kevin drove the rest of the way home while I tried to figure out flight information and hotels and stuff so we could go to the funeral.  We ended up flying in and out of Pennsylvania and staying in a hotel in West Virginia, all so we could see my family and go to the funeral in Ohio.  In the tri-state area, obviously.



Pap Pap always called these two Skeeter and Magoo.  He called me and my brother the same thing when we were little.

He always wore the same thing.  He wore dark jeans, rolled up once at the bottom, a white shirt under a plaid shirt with buttons, white socks and black shoes.  Right out of 1950.  Even in the summer.  He loved Elvis, and I always imagined it was sort of a casual Elvis look.

He took his lunch to work in a big metal lunch box, with a metal thermos.  He worked for GM, and he was outraged when I bought a Ford.  And then again, when I bought another one.  He liked Kevin, and not just because he bought a Buick.



He collected guns.  And he liked to hide them around his house so that he always would have one handy.  I remember that he had a sign on his front door when I was little that said "Trespassers will be shot.  Survivors will be shot again."  It was one of the first things I remember learning to read.  And there was usually a gun hidden right next to the front door, in the washing machine, so my grandma had to check before doing laundry, or later, when the garbage compacter broke, right in there.  When we would go visit, my little brother and I had to stay on the front porch while my parents would go in the house and do a sweep, moving all the hidden guns out of of reach, before we could come in.

Apparently no one has found where he hid the gun Kevin is holding in that photo as of yet.

One time when we were visiting, when I was in middle school, I think, Pap Pap sat me down and told me that he was going to tell me the most important things I would need to know to survive.  He explained to me that if I was ever in a car sinking into a lake, I should wait for the car to completely submerge, then roll the window down and hold my breath, wait for the car to fill with water, and then swim out and up.  Oh, and if I encountered an alligator while I was doing that, I should just get behind it's head and then hold it's jaws shut with my arms, like I was giving it's snout a hug.

I don't know where he came up with that.  He was always watching westerns on TV, and I'm pretty sure that never happened to John Wayne.  It hasn't happened to me, either, but I will always remember.



My Dad and Uncle Tim.  They remind me a bit of Connor and Lex, but in 50 years or so.

November 8, 1936 - May 17, 2015

He is buried right next to my Grandma now.  Which really struck Lex.  He later told me that when I die, he is going to bury me right next to Daddy, and that he is going to put us right next to each other, with little windows in our boxes, so that we can see each other forever.