Published: April 10, 2008 11:47 pm            

Stan Champer: Odd maybe, but it made life richer, so it did: 4/11/08

The big debate Wednesday morning was whether to head directly into the yard and tackle those leaves that were still clogged in the shrubbery, or while away the hours at something less taxing and more enjoyable.

Armed with that first cup of coffee, I stepped outside and noticed immediately that dark clouds were moving in from the west. I guessed that my decision was made, and was sure of it a moment later when the rain hit.

“It’ll be too wet to work in the yard,” I thought to myself. “I’ll just get my jacket, hop in the car, and spend some time at the library, so I will.”

“So I will?”

The words echoed in my mind as I stepped back into the house, and I think I must have smiled. I knew where they came from, but wondered what in the world had brought them to mind after all these years.

Back in the ’70s I became acquainted with a distant kinsman in northeastern Ohio who had the habit of forever ending his sentences with just such an affirmation. It was a quirk of conversation that was uniquely his.

Neither his brothers nor anyone else in the family shared the habit, but in the course of an afternoon in company with John Champer, you could count on hearing those closing “so he’s” and “so she’s” for as long as a conversation lasted.

“Uncle Will always favored that spot on the back side of the farm, so he did. Every time we worked those fields, he’d bring it up and say they made a big mistake not building the house there, so he would.”

John was already in his 70s when we got to know one another, but there were a lot of visits over the next few years, a lot of conversations both in his living room and while walking across the land where our family had settled in 1810.

He passed on several years ago, but if I close my eyes and concentrate, I can still picture him in those bib overalls with his hands wrapped around the straps and a little cap on his head like the one Henry Fonda wore in the film “The Grapes of Wrath.”

I can picture the grin on his face and hear the infectious chuckle that always came at the end of a story that tickled his funny bone. But most of all, I hear him talking and making his end-of-sentence pronouncements: “so he did … so he would … so he could.”

I had a great admiration for John and miss him deeply. In many ways, he reminded me of my own father, which perhaps explains another element of this story.

The series of thoughts that went through my mind Wednesday morning also served to remind me that I learned a lot of things from my dad in the latter years of his life that he’d barely mentioned up till then.

I think he’d reached the point in his own journey when memories take on added significance, becoming sharper and more cherished. I learned about people who went long before and heard some wonderful stories.

Telling these, it was clear, was something he enjoyed doing. He was drawing benefits from years of contributions to a 401k of memories. Good memories.

I suppose I’ve come to that place where Dad was years ago, because I think more and more about those whose lives and mine have crisscrossed at some point along the way, and each memory is as unique as the person it involves.

In my own 401k, John Champer’s conversational idiosyncrasy is his and his alone, but there’s a lot of other spice-of-life contributions in the account.

And I’m all the richer for having them to think about, so I am.

STAN CHAMPER can be reached at schamper@dailyindependent.com or (606) 326-2640.

        

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