By Josh McDaniel
I hate socks.
If I could wear Crocs or Chucks with no socks every day of my life, my world would be a much better place. Sadly, my utopian dream will never be a reality, so here I am again with socks on my feet. I try to make the best out of a bad situation by wearing foot prisons that show off my personality. Whether it be one of my eight pairs of Captain America socks, my Peyton Manning socks, or my Louisville Slugger socks, my socks represent a small piece of who I am.
Today’s socks go a little bit deeper.
Today, I am wearing watermelon socks.
Watermelons to most folks are just a delicious fruit to eat in the summer at a BBQ, but to me a watermelon represents so much more.
I grew up on a farm in Sugartown, Louisiana.
To call modern day Sugartown a town would be doing a disservice to towns everywhere. There is a stop sign, a church, an old school, and a cemetery. There was a post office and a convenience store, but they burned down a few years ago. Not coincidental, they were housed in the same building.
A few thousand feet from said stop sign you can find Leon Stracener Road.
Take a right down what is no longer a dirt road, hang a left at the fork, go around the big curve, and you will see a small unassuming white house underneath centuries old trees.
The yard will be a bit overgrown, but trust me, it used to be immaculately kept.
There along the sidewalk is where the azaleas and jasmine bushes would bloom. On the other side, beautiful rose bushes once stood proudly. The grass was always mowed, and to be one of the trusted few to mow the grass was a tremendous rite of passage for us select few.
There is a patch of black dirt near the porch that makes for wonderful mud pies after a rainy spring day, and the grass by the back porch makes for a suitable place to practice Pete Rose-esque head first slides despite the low hanging power lines and the hole in the ground covered up by an old sheet of plywood.
Go around the side of the house to the backyard, and you might still find the persimmon tree. If God made a more disgusting fruit than a persimmon, I am certain that He kept it for Himself. Although not fit for eating, the fruits lying on the ground make for tremendous ammo to throw at your cousins.
If you look over the fence in the backyard, you will see where the barn once stood.
There were chicken coops, pig pens, and a corn crib among the various homemade structures built near the barn that time has taken over. I would not be surprised if you still see an old tractor that no longer runs. Not that you could have cranked it in its heyday anyway. There were never any keys: only a screwdriver and an unparalleled mechanical knowledge.
Look to the left, and you will see an old, washed-out road leading into the woods. If you are brave enough you could try to make it up that road. It winds back and leads to what used to be an expansive piece of land with fertile soil like no other. They say it is the soil that makes the melons taste so good.
I think it is the love in which they were grown.
My Paw-Paw, Mitchell Jackson, was a career Army man, but he also had a green thumb like none other I have ever encountered. You name it, and he grew it… Corn, peas, tomatoes, cucumbers…
But the watermelons…
The watermelons were my favorite.
Before I learned to read, I learned to eat a watermelon; they were an integral part of my childhood.
For us, the first melon off the vine was a celebration, and those that followed would be picked by the older grandchildren and loaded into the back of an old pickup truck. I would ride with Paw-Paw all over the countryside peddling out of the back of the truck.
Most often boredom would overtake me, and my patience would wear thin.
His never did.
He was kind and gentle: the epitome of true strength.
As I got older, I found myself spending my summers carrying ripe melons to the end of the row and later loading them onto the truck.
You never needed water in the field.
You just used a pocket knife to cut open a red-meated or a yeller-meated, and you ate it right there with your dirty hands.
Sometimes in the loading process, melons would get “accidentally dropped,” and you just cannot let a good Sugartown watermelon go to waste.
As a kid, I never realized the life lessons I was learning on those miserably hot summer days, nor did I realize how I would later treasure those times in the cab of a pickup listening to an old Army vet from Mississippi sing “White Lightning.”
From him, I learned to be honest and kind.
He never fully charged what he could have charged for his watermelons. He would always say, “I just don’t think it’s right what those grocery stores are charging for their melons. I don’t feel right doing that.”
I learned the beauty of a hard day’s work.
I am not sure Paw-Paw ever truly retired.
He was a mechanic, a talented gunsmith, and he paid the bills by being the best locksmith I have ever known.
I learned that you cannot put a value on valuing people. Paw-Paw treated everyone equally.
His heart always saw the best in people.
Well, until you mistreated one of his grandkids.
Of all the lessons I learned, I think the most important two lessons I learned are to take pride in your work and to stand for what is right, no matter the cost.
Paw-Paw has been gone now for nearly 12 years, and I have not eaten many watermelons since that day in June.
They just don’t taste right anymore.
Paw-Paw was there for so many milestones in my life.
He came to countless numbers of ball games, school plays, and awards days. He saw me graduate from college, and I even got him to wear a tux with an ascot in my wedding.
I wish he could have met his great-grandkids.
The three of them would’ve been thick as thieves getting into way too much mischievous activities. There would’ve been way too many Cokes drank, way too many Little Debbie cakes eaten, and way too many bedtimes ignored.
As they grow up, I’ll tell Davis and Eleanor all about their Paw-Paw Jack.
I’ll tell them all the stories Paw-Paw shared with me throughout his life.
I’ll tell them of the love he had for his beloved Rubie, whom he called the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.
I’ll tell them of Paw-Paw’s patriotism and how he instilled in me a deep sense of pride for our nation.
I will tell Eleanor how every time I look into her sparkling blue eyes, I see the same blue gentle, loving, and fiery eyes I saw for 29 years.
I had the extraordinary honor of giving the eulogy at Paw-Paw’s funeral.
It was incredibly difficult putting into words my feelings for a man who measured 6’5″, but stood ten feet tall.
I like to think that I did right by him and those who love him. He is my hero, and there will never be another man like him.
My last line of the eulogy is one I borrowed from the lyrics of an old Pat Green song, “He was one helluva man.”
Mitchell Jackson, you were one helluva man.
