Our Grandpa...and Granny.

We have an affinity for our great-grandfathers. For those of you with an underdeveloped vocabulary, that means we love them, and cannot get enough of them. We like our great-grandmothers a lot too. Mostly because they come along with our Paw-Paw's. We call both of our great-grandfathers Paw-Paw, although we hear it differently in our heads. When Momma talks about Paw-Paw we know she's talking about Paw-Paw Sulak. We also know that along with that Paw-Paw comes Meemaw, although we call her Mawmaw. When Momma says Grandpa, we know she's talking about Grandpa Fowler, and along with him comes Granny. We refer to her as Nannie. Are you still with us? There's no need to take notes. We'll provide you with a handout of the important information later. For now, just try to keep up.

This past weekend was Grandpa's 75th Birthday Party. No one really knows when Grandpa was born. We know for a fact that he was not born on the day that is recorded on his birth certificate, because he was not born in a hospital. He was born at home, and according to legend, it took several days before his presence on earth was legally recorded. We generally celebrate his birthday on a day that works for us, and this year Saturday worked for us.

We don't know too much about Grandpa's younger days, but what we do know is that he was in the Air Force, and he was stationed in Hawaii...or as he calls it..."Ha-why-a." Later, he worked at Grace. We aren't really sure what kind of company Grace is, but we do know that they gave their employees A LOT of notepads with their company logo on it. Our momma used to use them as a kid to take orders when she pretended to work at Dairy Mart, and just a few weeks ago we noticed a few laying around being used to keep score for a dominos game. Grace should really kick in a little extra pension for Grandpa for doing such a great job on marketing and advertising, because we're pretty sure Grandpa never met a person to whom he didn't give a Grace notepad. Or maybe they should take away a little pension to cover the cost of all the notepads that somehow kept disappearing...?

Somewhere between the Air Force and Grace, Grandpa and Granny met. The way he tells it, they were both at a mutual friend's house to play cards or dominos, and he just HAD to know who that hot woman was. Granny always scoffs and rolls her eyes when he tells this story, but we think she thinks it's cute. She's five years his senior, but that didn't stop him. They got married not too long after our Gigi and Papoo got married in 1977.

Their years went on together. There have been many threats of Granny throwing her shoe at him, when she gets annoyed. When they come to visit, and he's ready to go home, he always slaps Granny on the leg and says, "Well, let's go WOMAN!" She always tells him she's going to finish her coffee first. And now, one of his favorite things is US! We love him too, and we were very excited to have throw a party for him. We're still singing happy birthday to him.