He passed away this morning at about 3:30am. I'm not sure of the exact cause, but I do know that he had just had another surgery to reattach his bowels and remove a colostomy bag. The surgery was successful and I think he figured he was put back together and could leave earth as a complete human being.
Here is the little thing I wrote:
Maybe because the end of his days might be approaching, I feel prompted to write about my grandpa. I write “maybe” because death seems to avoid my family as long as possible. I think death is afraid of the blessing on my family by God. Doctors are saying there is not much time left, he could pass tonight. In some ways I started preparing for this day.
In my line of work, I come across death quite often. It has affected me in a positive way though. Despite the fact that death is an end to those who are still left alive, awareness that it could strike at any moment allows you to live a fuller, more meaningful life I think. I am as guilty as anyone in respect to wasting time and not following my gut instinct on certain things, but I am trying to change that. About two months ago, I was able to send a letter of appreciation to my grandpa and grandma for what they have taught me because I realized that something could happen to any of us that might not ever allow me to say what I did in that letter. They taught me, by example, to not live in fear of failure and to take calculated risks. To not just survive, but to succeed. They have had a profound impact on more people than they realize.
John Wesley Pepper, Wes to his friends and family, and grandpa to me, has been one of the most influential men in my life, second only to my dad. As a young child I was lucky enough to spend a ton of time with him. Grandpa and grandma were residential developers in Half Moon Bay, California. So a lot of my childhood was riding shotgun in a Ford F-250, eating beef jerky and driving around to different job sites. I would be told to stay in the truck while grandpa ran over to check on some work when the car phone (yeah, remember those?) would go off and honk the horn of the truck. Grandpa would come sprinting out from the site, leaping over scrap wood piles and cursing the whole way. Usually it was grandma at the “Gallery of Homes” real estate office with some important business about permits or plans or things that a five year old could care less about. Some days we would have to drive over the hill to the San Mateo County Building department to take care of inspections and other business. Usually that meant lunch at Sizzler or some other kind of treat!
My first paid job was for my grandpa. “Pick up all these little pieces of wood and make a pile right over here, I'll pay you 25 cents an hour!” he said. I put in eight hours that day, picking up wood and bent nails. After the hard day of labor, a first or second grader with a box full of candy bars came walking by the job site in Montara. “Want to buy a candy bar?” he asked my grandpa. Grandpa looked at me and asked, “How does that sound?” You must be kidding, I'm a five year old that just worked a full eight hour day, that sounded amazing! The kid advised grandpa the price for the candy bars, grandpa paid him and I was almost in chocolate covered heaven. “Well, you worked eight hours and at 25 cents an hour that makes two dollars. That candy bar cost two dollars, so we are even!” Yup, eight hours for a candy bar. Come to think of it, I have never bought a candy bar from a school aged child ever since that day!
At six years old, I remember walking across the street from my home in Highland Park to climb onto the tractor with grandpa as he cleared and leveled a lot to prepare for digging the footings. While leaning on the rear fender, as he worked levers moving the drag box up and down, clearing weeds and dirt, he looked at me and said he needed to eat lunch. Maybe because of his Kansas roots, he decided six was old enough to operate heavy machinery!
Honestly, that Massey-Ferguson was designed with controls simple enough for a six year old. The pedal with an “up” arrow made it go forward, the “down” arrow back and the levers were just push or pull to make the box go up and down. After a couple of passes on his lap, confident that his six year old grand-son could survive, he stepped off the tractor and walked over to the house to have a sandwich. You read that right. Six years old. Driving a tractor. Clearing a lot. Just let that sink in.
He told me, twenty years later, that my tractor skills pretty much doubled the work he had after lunch, but he did that to build my confidence. That's the kind of man he is.
He was letting me drive his Chevy Blazer on dirt roads when I was nine. He kept two or three little throw pillows in the darn thing so I could see over the dash. I was scared out of my mind, but he reassured me that I would do fine. After a couple years he made me hop into the driver's seat of his Jeep Grand Cherokee. Man, he loved that Jeep. It was a champagne gold color and he kept it clean! After a day of shooting down by the Pecos river in Roswell, New Mexico, he decided it was time for me to learn how to drive a stick shift. Into the driver's seat I went. I was about 10 or 11 by then, an appropriate age by anyone's standard. By my second or third lesson, it was time to learn some four wheeling basics. As we began to descend a short incline, he instructed me to “straddle the ruts”. To me, the ruts were the tall things between the tire tracks, so I put the tires right in the tracks. Boy was that a mistake! We bounced side to side so hard that every time I tried to hit the brakes, I hit the gas. While violently swaying from side to side, we lurched forward several times. The Jeep was going straight for a gigantic bush and I was in full panic mode. The front of the Jeep wedged into the bush and the engine finally died.
During the incident, I had entirely forgotten about that damn clutch. Once the noise stopped, the severity of the situation hit me and I burst into tears. My younger brother, Ian, was laying down in the back, eyes closed and reaching under the seat, holding on for dear life. Grandpa, sitting in the passenger seat, looked over at me. I had just wrecked his beautiful Jeep and his eyes were watering too. Between my sobs, I realized that his eyes were watering because he was laughing! My brother asking if we had finished rolling and he started laughing harder. That's my grandpa.
Grandpa taught me the first rule of shooting, “safety first”. I will never forget the day Mrs. English, my second grade teacher, said, “Daniel, your dad is here to pick you up”. Right in the middle of class! When I walked out to the old Toyota, there was grandpa in the passenger seat. I jumped in, straddling the stick shift right between the bucket seats and off we went to go shooting. On the way back from that mini-adventure, we stopped by a store. I can't remember which store exactly, but we walked out with a brand new, pump-action, Crossman air gun. That evening, with a carpet filled five-gallon bucket as a back-stop, I was shooting bulls-eyes in my room. Yeah, I said that, in my room! Despite “safety first”, grandpa felt that it was important to also teach his grandsons what being shot at sounded like. While living in Idaho, he took us out to shoot an SKS. “Go lay down behind that log, I want you to see how you will hear the bullet before the sound of the gun going off” he said. What 13 year old wouldn't think that was cool? Sure enough, you can hear the sound of the bullet rushing through the air before the report of of the gun! Don't tell my mom. Man, grandpa is so cool.
Grandpa entertained me for hours with his stories. Sometimes he told them to me when we were driving across the country to Kansas. Sometimes he told them to me when we were stuck in the house in Portland, Oregon during a four day power outage because of an ice storm. They probably aren't considered appropriate for young children by some people's standards, but they were incredible stories. Stories of bombing runs as a right wing gunner on a B-29 during the forgotten war of Korea. Stories of high-school football games with leather helmets and teeth getting knocked out. Stories of street races in his '55 Ford Skyliner and stories of knocking guys out who deserved it at the bar.
Grandpa had his problems in life, but he sure didn't stand for injustice. There was no such thing as mistreating a person just because. That didn't slow down with age either.
I don't recall his exact age, but it was over 70 for sure, when he defended my grandmother's honor in Mexico. Some punk 50-something year old saw grandpa working on a small piece of property in Baja, Mexico and the punk decided to tell grandpa what he thought of grandma. Apparently the words he chose were not very respectful and pretty much the worst thing you could say about a woman. True to form, grandpa took a hard swing at the guy. Unfortunately, age had taken its toll and grandpa wasn't as quick as he was a few years earlier. The punk ducked the swing, climbed back in his car, swore a few more times about “old crazies” and drove away. As civilized as you are, you still smile at the thought of a knight in shining armor rescuing a princess. That is grandpa.
Now grandma hasn't been an angel her whole life, nor has grandpa, but you don't mess (I really wanted to use the F-word) with family. We all have our issues, but the one thing that is true about us, the Pepper clan, is that we stick together. We have grandpa to thank for that. We fight and bicker amongst ourselves. Sometimes we have more drama than we should. But the moment someone threaten's the safety or honor of a family member, that person better watch out. They have no idea what strength this family possesses.
When I hear about an injustice of some sort, there is a fire that burns inside of me. I can't stand it. I want to fight for what's right, I am a warrior for good. I have learned that from the men that influence me the most. Hard work, commitment, determination, toughness, responsibility and patience is what he has demonstrated for me. Thank you for what you have taught me grandpa.
-dg
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