“Come on down to Grandpa’s House. Do-dah. Do-dah. Everyone is coming there all the live-long day. Won’t you come on down? Won’t you come and stay? Come on down to Grandpa’s House on How’d Dey Do Dat? Day.”
The second Saturday of each October is a special day for my family. It is the day we celebrate our rural heritage by opening the farm to guests. We have various folks demonstrating farm and family life in Grandpa’s day.
We had a difficult decision two days before the 2015 How’d Dey Do Dat? Day. Big Daddy died early that morning. Should we cancel the activities of the following Saturday? Invitations and announcements had been sent out weeks ago. It would be hard to contact folks. It seemed unkind, if not unfair, to the demonstrators who were coming to share their craft and their wares. It was quickly decided to go ahead with it because Big Daddy loved this day! He would be disappointed if he was the reason we cancelled.
Big Daddy loved this day. He loved sitting with the shade tree pickers and singers. His age-swollen hands would not allow him to pick more than a few notes but he could still sing with them. He loved sitting with his friend Joe, the blind wood carver. Both were veterans of war (WWII for Big Daddy, Viet Nam for Joe). They talked about their war-time experiences. After Big Daddy had died, Joe told us how those conversations helped him with the ghosts of war.
Big Daddy loved watching the kids run and play – stick horse barrel racing, running the corn cobs through the old sheller and corn cracker. He loved visiting with the folks – old friends and some new friends, too. He loved watching the grist mill powered by a tractor or a wagon load of folks going for a ride through the hayfield across the road from the old farm house – Grandpa’s House.
We originally invited folks to the farm to honor Grandpa Dewey, Uncle Jack and our rural roots. We come from a long line of hard working blacksmiths, wheelwrights, cooper smiths, and farmers. (And a few bootleggers.) Men and women who worked with their hands as well as their hearts. Since that first celebration day in 2004, we have had to say goodbye to Big Daddy, Uncles George and Willard.
On the Monday, following How’d Dey Do Dat? Day 2015, we celebrated the life and times of Big Daddy. We opened the memorial with an scratchy recording from a radio show from back in the mid-1940s. Big Daddy was recently discharged from the Army Air Corp. He was singing with some of his buddies around the area. Early one morning on WHIN, Gallatin TN he sang:
Remember me when the candle lights are gleaming, Remember me at the close of a long, long day. It would be so sweet when all alone I'm dreaming Just to know you still remember me.
At the end of the song, Art Driver announced: “Remember you? Of course, we will remember you. How could we ever forget?"
Nearly every day you can see the spirits of Grandpa Dewey and the Uncles 3 in the fields, in the blacksmith shop and in the old farm house. On the second Saturday of October, you can see Big Daddy whittling the time away with Joe under the trees next to Grandpa’s House.
“Come on down to Grandpa’s House. Do-dah. Do-dah. Everyone is coming there all the live-long day. Won’t you come on down? Won’t you come and stay? Come on down to Grandpa’s House on How’d Dey Do Dat? Day”
