Another look in the mirror…

​     This isn’t really a memory as much as it is a look in the mirror. I knew one grandpa from my birth until he passed away in 1993. The other passed away fifteen years before I was born. 

     I learned a lot of my grandpa Townsend’s story from him. My grandpa Sutton’s story comes from what my dad and my aunt told me. 

     I have a lot in common with both. My grandpa Townsend was a carpenter. I’m by no means a carpenter, but I build things from time to time. What he couldn’t teach me, YouTube has tried, but with many more failures then he experienced. 

    My grandpa Sutton was a maintenance technician, as was my dad,  and thus making me a third generation maintenance technician. Grandpa worked at Stokley’s right here in Peru just a block from his house. 

    Both my grandpas were tough men. They worked hard to take care of their families. Both lived through the depression and survived things many of today’s men couldn’t. 

    My name is Charles after my grandpa Charles O. Sutton, but from my earliest memory I’ve always been Charley. Nobody spells it the way I do. It’s always Charlie with an ie when someone writes me a note. I don’t know what makes me spell it with an ey, but I always have. 

    When my grandma Sutton passed away in 1986, we went to my uncle’s house. My grandpa’s possessions were stored in his shed. No one knew what happened to the key to his footlocker, so we broke open the lock.  

    The flag from his casket, the few things he brought back from WW1, and a few things he had saved over the years were in there. 

    One thing I noticed as I looked through some of the papers was his signature. He signed everything with Charley Sutton spelled exactly as I do. I use my full name on official documents, but I use Charley Sutton to sign personal correspondence. 

     Nobody ever told me my grandpa went by Charley spelled the same as I do. My Dad, my Aunt, and my Uncle always called him Dad. I pulled the spelling of  Charley out my head and told everyone how I spelled it. Do you ever wonder what put a thought in your head or why you feel the way you do?  That’s my “where did that come from?” question. 

      I don’t think I’ll ever know exactly who my grandpas were because I don’t have all of their stories. One was gone way before I was born. The other was retired before my memories start. I miss one every day since I last saw him. I miss one I never met anywhere besides in my head. 

      I don’t exactly know who I am, because my story isn’t finished. I hope that I’m half the man either of them. Whatever I am, and whatever I leave this world being, I only hope it’s something that makes people I care about smile when they think of me.  

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