Boppo
This one is hard for me.
Even after all these years,
I find I can’t talk about him without some tears, Ok, what is a
“Boppo”?
First of all I was more than a little indigent that I had
to add
this word to a dictionary
here to keep it from being underlined as a non-word.
Once added, it occurred to me that it would be impossible
for any stupid
computer
dictionary to know what the word meant.
Let me first tell you what the word means.
The word means “a love so deep and enduring that there
is no beginning or end.”
The word means, ‘grandfather’.”
If there is something more out there than that for mere
mortals,
don’t tell me, I really
don’t want to know.
I won’t go on and on with buzz words and platitudes,
listen to
this music and maybe you will understand what
a “Boppo” is and how
much I miss him after all these years
and will miss him forever.
He may not be the “He” mentioned
in this song, but for me,
“He” turned the tide and calmed
the angry seas…” and loved
me all my life and still does.
He taught me to roller skate and to ride a bike.
He held me on his lap and told me stories of times gone by.
He gave me a sense of self-worth and of pride in who I am.
He was “Boppo” to everyone in town. I believe if you had just
addressed an envelope
to “Boppo” and put the city and state,
he would have received
that mail. He loved to sip a cool
highball
after a long day at the
office. He would sit in his favorite
lawn chair watching me and
the neighborhood children playing
on the swing set he had
built for me and would laugh as we raced
for the clothesline pole
that was always
“base” when we played hide and
seek.
He took me on trips to
everything in
the city was magical and ablaze with lights and sounds.
In
for me to get into a night
club and be served a “Shirley Temple”
while watching a floor show
that I remember to this very day.
We walked up so many flights of stairs in the Statue of
Liberty
that he finally gave up and
waited for me to go on the last few flights.
I wasn’t scared though, because I knew he would be there
waiting
for me when I had finished
viewing the city from Lady Liberty’s crown.
We were on top of the world on the observation deck at the
I had a passion for dolls then and have the same passion
now,
but on that memorable trip
to
for
of a shop as we literally
flew by. Later, we would walk
uncountable city
blocks re-tracing the journey until we finally found
the little shop. I had $8.68 cents left from the ten dollars
my parents
had given me before we
left on the train headed for
That was quite a sum for a child back in 1959. At any rate, once inside
the shop, I found the doll
of my dreams. A large walking doll
with blonde curly hair and
big blue eyes. I asked the man at the
counter
how much she cost and to
my delight, he responded that she was $8.68.
That doll and I were inseparable throughout the rest of the
trip.
She had her own seat at meals in the best restaurants in
town.
She even got her own entrée’s and breakfasts of pancakes and
sausages.
I was much older when I found out that the shop was a doll
wholesale
place and that the dolls in
there were not even for sale to the public.
I also found out that Boppo had been standing behind me
flashing a
larger
amount of money, signaling to the shop keeper that he would be
getting a
handsome price for the doll by simply telling me she would cost $8.68.
I had my own room at Boppo’s
house. He and Mommo lived just next
door to me and being and
only child and only grandchild, you can
imagine that
I was more than just a little “spoiled”, but I was never the “brat”
you think of when you
think of an only child. I was taught to
be considerate
and obedient and to love
and respect my family. When I made
mistakes,
and I made plenty of them,
I had to face the music, but I knew I was
loved and that I was
forgiven.
I was given the rare opportunity of a lifetime, to be able,
as a nurse, to care
for him in his last
days. As he had cared for me all my
life,
I was able to give back in some small way.
So what is a “Boppo”?
If you are a grandparent, it is the highest degree of grand
parenting you can achieve.
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