In memory of my Pop-Pop

Last week, Jimmy, my dad, and I took a plane to Maryland to bury my Pop-Pop. Here's Jimmy on his first plane ride:

 During my girlhood, Pop-Pop and Grandmommy would travel in their pick up truck and camper to visit us, wherever we happen to be living at the time. I remember when they parked in our front yard in Michigan, a campsite in California. When we moved to Maryland, their home state at the time, we would visit on holidays and sometimes just because. Pop-Pop loved puzzles. I remember doing word scrambles with him when I could barely read-- specifically we did one on different cities in California. My frustration, you can imagine, was great-- here I barely could read English words, and now I was unscrambling unfamiliar Hispanic names? I remember spotting San Diego, but Pop-Pop knew the rest. In his home in Maryland, he had a few puzzles made out of metal and wood-- some I could master, some I could not. After we moved to Illinois, I didn't see him very often. We went back to Maryland when he and his wife were packing up their house permanently and moving to Florida. I think that was the last time I saw him, though I know he heard updates about me through Grandmommy reading this blog, and I heard about him, too. My memories of him are all fond: a funny, kind, quiet man with a mesh hat delicately balanced on his head. The world will miss you, Pop-Pop.