Calling Pop Pop

When my phone rings before 7:00 a.m., for an instant I think it's Cles calling like he once did regularly. He would forget that he was two hours earlier in North Carolina or even Virginia, and sometimes we would get a call before our alarm sounded in the morning.

It was great hearing from him, regardless whether we fumbled about in the dark trying to find a phone.

Now it's different. We get calls again lately, but sometimes it's silent on the other end of the connection. "Sammy?" I always say automatically.

The caller ID shows that the call is coming from Lydia's cell phone in Florida. As soon as our little one hears her name, she squeals and then starts to talk to us, in some sort of language that only Sammy can understand, but I never quit trying to decipher the words.

When Jack was that age, he did the same thing, and I eventually could understand him, but this situation is different. We only get a chance to talk to Sammy once or twice a week when she hits the speed dial.

The first call was hilarious. It surprised Lydia as much as it did Pop Pop. I see the caller ID. "Lyda?" I say repeatedly. I can hear background noise. Lydia is at the computer keyboard. There are beeps occasionally.

Then I hear Lydia's voice. "Samantha, don't hit me with the phone. That hurts." Sammy starts to cry, but she puts the phone to her ear. She can her me. I can her mourning the moment.

"Sammy, this is Pop Pop." I start to growl into the phone, and then I do the Pop Pop Wolfman howl. Sammy stops crying. There us a click, and the line goes dead.

I call Lydia. She answers on the first ring. "Did Samantha call you dad?" We laughed about it for a moment, especially when Lydia said how she noticed the strange noise coming from the phone. She heard my growling and howling for Samantha.

Since that call, Sammy calls us by hitting the speed dial, but she called Cles this past week as well. This time she "texted" her uncle.

Ug appeared in the text. Cles, afraid that Lydia had a bad day or something called immediately. Lydia told Cles that Sammy had been doing her "thing" with the cell phone.

It's just another example of how simple things make life so interesting. I don't mind getting calls from Sammy or Anna or Tommy or Cles before 7:00 a.m.

But if the reader of this posting is selling a condo, or you if have some Third World family you want me to help by loaning them $2000 until their "fortune" arrives, don't call ever. Although I like those calls too. It gives me a chance to feel anger, to vent frustration, to voice vengeance. It has been over six years since my retirement, so I don't get a chance to practice being mean. I just don't see high school administrators on a regular basis anymore.