My Grandpa Fox

Memorial weekend always takes me back down "Memory Lane."  I've written about my Grandpa Riggs but as yet, haven't put the "pen to the paper" about my Grandpa Fox.  Well...Today's the day! (As I was typing and going back and forth from webpage to webpage, I discovered that Grandpa Fox passed away 44 years ago today.  Is that coincidence, providence or what?)

Joel Vest Fox was born on September 1, 1893.  If you want to read some of his ancestry, you can find it here.  I was six years old when he passed so I don't have a lot of memories, but those I do have are very precious.  My earliest recollection was of a tall, skinny, old man in Hickory Stripe overalls, with a watch chain drooping out of the bib pocket.  In the picture below he is the one in the coat with his brother, Uncle Grover Fox on his left.  If you zoom in on the picture you can see the watch chain.

He also used a watch fob.  A watch fob is a short leather strap that attaches to the pocket watch and the other end has a small, flat decorative ornament of some sort.  You slip the watch in the watch pocket in the bib or in the little pocket beside the right pocket on your jeans (A lot of you didn't know what that little pocket was for didja?!) When you needed to check the time you just hauled the watch out using the "fob" or "chain" (depending on what you were wearing.)  Grandma Fox gave me one of Grandpa's watch fobs and it is one of my prize possessions.

What I really remember most about Grandpa Fox was that he smoked.  Not the ready roll type but the roll-your-own type.  I can see him reach into the bib of his overalls, take out a little package of cigarette papers, carefully take out one of the thin little papers and then put the papers back in his bib.  He would then reach into the same bib and take out old "Prince Albert" in a can!

 

He would open the flip lid of the can, shake out a certain amount of tobacco into the paper, close the lid on the can, and (while carefully holding the paper with the tobacco) put the can back in his bib.  He would "cradle" the paper and tobacco in the fingers of one hand and with a finger spread the tobacco evenly in the paper.  Then he would carefully roll the paper, lick along the edge of the paper to make it stick, smooth it out a couple of times and twist one end to keep the tobacco from spilling out.  He would put the cigarette in his mouth, light it with a kitchen match or from a book of matches and puff away!  He would hold the cigarette by squeezing a little piece of the cigarette paper between his thumb and forefinger and hold his other hand under the tip to catch the ash.  Every now and then he would give a little "spit" to spit out the tobacco that got in his mouth from the "drawing" end of the cigarette.  Forty years down the road, I can still see all of this in my minds eye.  His thumb and forefinger were stained yellow from the years of smoking and he always had that certain tobacco smell about him.

When I was growing up, there was not the stigma attached to smoking that there is today.  When Grandpa Fox or the Uncles that smoked came to our house, we accommodated them.  Not only did they smoke in the house but we even had a special ash tray for them!

  

For those of you that read my blog, that know me; I am not advocating the use of tobacco.  I am totally against it.  I must be honest though and tell you that when I smell someone smoking loose leaf tobacco or pipe tobacco, it takes me way back in time.

One of the few times I saw Grandpa Fox in anything but overalls...His 50th Anniversary Celebration!

The one memory I cherish of Grandpa Fox was when he would sing to me.  As far as I know, it was the only song he sung.  It went like this:

Ev'ry time I go to town
Somebody's kickin' my dawg aroun';
Makes no diff'rence if he is a houn', 
You better stop kickin' my dawg aroun'. 


Old Lem Briggs an' old Bill Brown
Took a load of corn to town;
Old Jim dawg, that onery cuss,
He just naturally follered us. 

As we driv past the Johnson's store
A passel of gents come out the door; 
Old Jim stopped to sniff at'a box 
They paced at him a bunch of rocks.
(Then Grandpa would say "Get outa there Jim!")
 

They tied a can to old Jim's tail
An' run him past the county jail;
That just naturally made us sore,
Lem, he cussed an' Bill he swore

Ev'ry time I go to town
Somebody's kickin' my dawg aroun';
Makes no diff'rence if he is a houn', 
You better stop kickin' my dawg aroun'.

I have an old reel-to-reel recording of Grandpa Fox singing this and at the end of it he says "How'ed ya like that Ray?!"

I drove by the old home place at Crider today....nobody else heard it.... but I think I may have just caught a few notes of "Old Jim Dog" as we drove past......

Grandpa Fox with his Dad, Joe Fox