Parrott Sutton of Bucklesberry died last week at the age of 92.
He was my granddaddy.
He passed at 4 a.m. on Thursday morning at the wonderful Kitty Askins Hospice Center in Goldsboro. Thankfully, he was able to stay in his home up until four days before his passing. Aside from having both knees replaced and a bout of tuberculosis a few years back, until recent months, he was usually in great health.
Out of his 92 years, he was probably only sick for about nine months total.
How was this guy able to live until 92, only having to give up driving a mere eight months ago? Genetics are no doubt a factor, but work being his hobby probably had a hand in it as well. My daddy recently used the duck analogy to describe Parrott: Calm on the surface, but underneath, those feet were always paddling. A man with a fourth grade education couldn’t have gotten as far as he did in life without an above average level of drive.
I worked with him in tobacco from the time I was 5 until the summer after I graduated from college. At 55, he was still working the top tier in a stick tobacco barn. He was still crawling into the hoop and walking the tobacco down well into his 60s, and I think he was still climbing to the top of the grain bin around the age of 70. A good number of people I know couldn’t — or wouldn’t — have done any of this stuff in their 20s.
Granddaddy was a veteran of World War II, but he wasn’t keen on discussing it. He told me just last year of being so thirsty at one point he and his fellow soldiers drank water that had puddled in a cow’s hoof print.
A few times, he spoke about having to use his rifle in the war, but he did so without 1 ounce of bravado. It was a hellish situation and he never painted it as anything else.
When he got the news he was finally going home, he slept on the tarmac next to the plane to be sure he didn’t miss the flight.
One thing he told me at a young age was the pressure his fellow soldiers put on him to drink, which he didn’t do. He said they’d make fun of him and some times even pour booze on his head, but he never gave in. Whenever I see some talking head prattling on about young people and peer pressure, I want to hit them in the head with a rotary dial telephone.
Many of Parrott’s fellow soldiers were from New York City and had no idea how to survive in foxholes and ditches. Having pretty much grown up outside, Granddaddy looked after these guys who were used to sidewalks and paved streets.
Three decades after the war ended, one of the New Yorkers that Granddaddy helped in the war tracked him down. They spoke on the phone for a while, and on top of thanking Parrott for helping him during the war, he told Parrott he’d made a lot of money as a businessman — and that if Parrott ever needed money to just ask and it would be sent immediately.
Granddaddy had done well as a farmer and didn’t need any help, but the magnitude of the gesture wasn’t lost on him.
Once while we were still using stick tobacco barns, Parrott and I were loading bundles of tobacco sticks into a truck. I picked up a bundle and a snake reared up and snapped at me. Parrott picked up a stick and beat the snake until bumps rose on its head. I was impressed, because the only time I’d seen bumps appear on a noggin that quickly was in a Roadrunner cartoon.
Parrott was always busy, but during tobacco season he was busy and a half. He’d been running so hard one day that when he came in from the field he went in the house and forgot to turn the truck off. It ran all night and the next morning was out of gas.
When tobacco sold good, we’d stop and get a $2 hamburger on the way home. Once during an auction, all of our sheets were taken out of the line and dragged into a corner. We initially thought something was wrong, but it turns out the tobacco looked so good they had to set up a separate auction.
Suffice to say, we got a $4 steak on the way home that day.
Another simple pleasure Parrott enjoyed up until his last couple of months was eating at Ken’s Grill in La Grange. Like a favorite pew in church, he had his favorite booth in the corner. I’ve actually heard of people getting up (without his asking) and letting him have his usual booth. It was pretty much a Southern take on the “Cheers”/Norm Peterson dynamic.
During the summers it wasn’t uncommon for he and I to head out to Ken’s for an ice cream cone after lighting all the barns. Making this an especially fortuitous endeavor was the fact that my cousin Amy was usually working at night, and she somehow figured out how to get about half a gallon of ice cream onto each cone, bless her heart.
When sitting at Ken’s, Parrott loved talking to people. Once during a particularly rainy spell, the Neuse River rose to a few feet above flood stage. I saw Parrott tell a fellow farmer the river had gotten so high you could see under it. He went on to say the mosquitoes in Bucklesberry had gotten so big they were toting chickens off during the night.
Parrott never cared for my long-ish hair, and on the night of his funeral he got his revenge from the other side.
A very sweet woman I’ve known my entire life came through the receiving line at the funeral to offer her condolences. She is in her 90s and her eyesight isn’t quite what it used to be. I was standing next to my cousin Shane, who is about 6-foot-3; I’m about 6-foot even. The sweet lady with the less than perfect eyesight shook Shane’s hand, pointed at me and asked Shane the following:
“Is that your wife?”
Granddaddy would have laughed, held up his pocket knife and asked me to lean in for a quick haircut. He did so many times.
For the rest of the weekend, family members young and old ribbed me about the wife question — even my real wife. Just to play along, after I left the family on Friday night, I called back and told Shane to pick up a loaf of bread and a gallon of milk on his way home.
Although he sort of knew about my writing for The Free Press, he never got a handle on the music stuff I do (“What’s Jon doing with that music turnout?”). But, I think he knew his family was looking out for him when he got in the short rows, so that’s enough.
To everyone who stopped by last week with food and/or a good story about Parrott, it was greatly appreciated. It’s telling that a man who outlived most of his contemporaries still had 150 people show up at his funeral. If my funeral cracks a dozen, I’ll be lucky.
Jon Dawson’s columns appear every Tuesday and Thursday in The Free Press. Contact Jon at 252-559-1092 or jon.dawson@kinston.com. Purchase books, music and butter pecan ice cream at jondawson.com.