2/7/23

Today someone mentioned Zingers which was all it took for a flood of memories to drown my thoughts with recollections of my Pepaw, Lawrence Frederick Collins. Pepaw was a route manager for Dolly Madison, the creator of the Zinger snack cake. When I was a single digit kid there was no shortage of Dolly Madison snack cakes in our house, Zingers included. The memories I have of my Pepaw are extensive but one of my fondest is going into grocery stores with him when I was a kid and how much he would embarrass me. He would seek out the largest, usually, African American female cashiers he could find and proceed to flirt like a professional. Looking back on this, watching my Pepaw flirt was similar to watching Michael Jordan play basketball, he was exceedingly good at it. He would use terms of endearment with these women who at the beginning of the exchange were not endeared to him but by the end of the exchange they appeared to be completely smitten with him. The irony in this is how badly he embarrassed me as a child, you would think I would abhor that type of behavior as an adult but in fact the contrary is true. I find myself, the older I get, using keywords such as “Honey”, “Sweetie” and “Sugar” when addressing female service workers. I truly have no control over this phenomenon and remember being confused and surprised the first time this happened. The unfortunate side to this is in this day and time, more often than not, this type of interaction is inaccurately perceived as demeaning with a touch of condescension, or perhaps I just don’t have the level of charisma that Pepaw had. On the other hand, maybe I just haven’t actually reached the age where I can get away with it. It’s a funny thing as you get older. You start thinking about the people who raised you both living and passed; all the parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents and even great grandparents. Then you start remembering all of their idiosyncrasies and habits by recognizing them in yourself. If I were to make a pie chart of which relative is responsible for which percentage of my personality, my pepaw would own a large chunk. I loved my pepaw very much and wish he were still here, he left a big void when he passed. It is my sincerest hope that 20 years after I pass, my grandkids remember me as fondly as I remember my pepaw.