in memory of the man responsible for my fishing skills

Papaw... My mom's dad. Passed away on this day in 2001. 6 years have passed since then, and I still sometimes check my missed calls on my cell phone so that I can hear a voicemail that says something like "If you aren't going to answer the phone, then why do you have an answering machine? If I wanted to talk to a machine I would have called a tele-marketer."

I want to list some of the quotes said to us, his 5 grand-children... I am sure those of you who met him, or know him, can add many stories to this... but here are the few that come to mind.

1. "Here comes DeeDee and her daycare" - said when we would go visit him (DeeDee is my mom)
2. "You are my favorite granddaughter [son]" - Spoken to whichever of us was with him at the moment.
3. "The rooty-tooty store." The description of ANY gas station where he could get us a small brown paper bag and we could fill it full of junk that we didn't need. The only rules were that a coke and bag of chips had to be present.
4. "If I go to bed, ya'll can go home." Usually said around 7:00 pm or so when he was ready to go to bed but we weren't showing signs of leaving.
5. "You're wet behind the ears." - Jen was the only one of us that even TRIED to understand that statement... her response? "Well, you're wearing tippy-toe shoes!" - - Papaw was a 280+ lb man... tippy toe shoes don't even BEGIN to make sense!
6. "If I had known I would live this long, I would have taken better care of myself!" a quote from his 60th birthday.

To the man who trained soldiers how to ski in Alaska, taught all of his grandkids how to fish, taught me how to drive... (WHAT A FEAT!), who loved us all more than he EVER dared to show on the surface.... We miss you Papaw...