I love pretending

When I have tons of people I need to thank for 'this and that' (usually helping me watch my kids or something similar), I LOVE to pretend to be Papa Jay from my childhood. He was a neighbor, always happy and willing to share a piece of his world-famous jerky. He was incredible. My hometown only had about 250 people in it, give or take a few depending on if Sister ____ was pregnant again :-) 

Totally kidding on that last one, I don't think the population ever seemed to change so the deaths equaled the births.

Anyway, each year Papa Jay hosted an AMAZING fireworks show. When I go back to the little town, and picture thousands of people there watching fireworks, I often stand in disbelief, for it is truly unbelievable. But, I was there. I helped clean up all of the mess people left and the firework pieces strewn all over my lawn. There were even a few years I helped wrap fireworks for the cool ground-displays he did. This was all set to music too, so my other neighbor Debbie gets lots of kudos for that.

I should post about the "Fireworks Extravaganza" again because it inevitably makes me happy.

Back to being Papa Jay, we all called him that, by the way. He was that kind of man. He passed away, I am thinking about 8 years ago. His funeral was one of those where you are laughing your head off, and then shedding a tear simply because of the legacy he left.

So, I am happy to patron the store that still bears his name. I buy, I share, and I proudly proclaim, "This is the best jerky you will have ever tasted and it is from my hometown."

If you'll do something nice for me, I will give you one too :-).