“Hey Fritz”

“Hey Fritz”
He would shout in his raspy, tattered voice
Fritz was my nickname
You only got a name if he liked you
But there he would stand
Older than sin
Taller than a 300 year-old Sequoia tree
But his pride made him stand tall
And that stupid baseball cap
It covered his snowy white “melon”
“Heya, Johny”
“How about it, you want some chocolate bubble gum?”
He would say this as he revealed a can of Copenhagen
“No thanks, Johny.”
Man, was I jealous
He had that traditional farmer look
Jeans
Flannel button-up shirt
Tucked in of course,
A“hanky” hanging out of one pocket
And an ear of corn in the other
And a belt with a obscenely large buckle.
He loved almost everybody
But he wouldn’t say it
Had that “you got to give up some things to get any” attitude
Just to have lived one day in his shoes
He fought on the front in WWII
Still had that kind of glazed over look in his eye
But man was he strong
He once told me I was his brother (my grandpa,
who died in October before I was born)
back from the dead
I think he meant it
I was much too young to understand but
His brother’s soul had become a part of me
We both missed his funeral
I wasn’t around yet and John was out of town I think
But I’ll never forget one thing about him
The day he gave me a dog
I was Fritz and he was Fred
And we were “The F-bombs.”

Stephen Ahrens-Myers