A.J. Rapp
My last post was about my grandfather, A.J. Rapp or Harpo as I remember!
When he returned from the Navy. my grandfather worked as a pharmaceutical rep, travelling Arkansas, Missouri and Oklahoma. In 1950, he moved his family back to Siloam Springs and he went to work as a mechanic for Bear Brand Hosiery. In 1956, he began his work as a distributor for the Tulsa World and Tribune newspapers. After a few years, he took the postal exam and became a Railway Mail Clerk, riding the train from Siloam to Kansas City and back to Texarkana. It was a challenging job, he had to remember each city and what line it was on in Kansas, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas and Louisiana.
On his days off, he would throw cards with town names on them into different slots to keep up his memory and aim. There was a test he had to take twice a year and you had to make a 95% in order to keep your job on the line. He kept up that job until the mid sixties, then went to work as night watchman for a local manufacturing plant.
But what I remember about my Grandfather is much different. I remember eating tomatoes from his garden in the garage with my very own salt shaker, watching him get the feral cats to come up to him when they would run like mad from me and watching him work at his workbench in the garage on a broken necklace chain or wristwatch of my mothers’.
He would sit with me at Christmas or Thanksgiving and pick on my mom or my grandmother, chuckling to himself and making jokes. We used to sit and discuss everything from family to jobs and everything in between.
One of our many discussions.
Grandpa had a great sense of humor as well. His favorite pastime was pestering my Grandmother. With arguments like she was sweeping the wrong way and making the broom have an angle and squeaking his McDonald’s straw in his cup to make her yell out “Harp!”, it was always fun to watch him smile real big and laugh.
We went camping often, especially after my grandmother died. He taught me how to use a CB radio, taught me how to paint (he was a great artist) and there were always boxes of Little Debbies in his freezer and soda cans in the fridge in the garage. He washed out his sandwich bags, reused every single glass jar he ever bought and never wasted a thing.
He passed away at age nine-six, four years ago. He was one of my fondest memories growing up and I miss him dearly.
One of our many camping trips.
Watching TV with Grandpa.
Grandpa with his usual bolo tie he wore to church.
A few months after my daughter was born, we travelled to see my family in Siloam.
My daughter and grandpa on the swings in the park. He was 93 at the time.
