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I have great memories of my grandfather, Zeb Inman. He played games with me and showed me how to dance. He had lovely brown eyes. Once, thinking I was paying him the greatest compliment in the world, I told him his eyes were as pretty as old Queen (one of my Dad's hunting dogs.) He did not take it as a compliment, but he knew I loved him. He visited us when my son was just beginning to walk. I had placed Gordon in a playpen out on the patio while I was preparing dinner and Grandpa was out with him. He came into the kitchen and told me "while, it seems a shame to keep the little fella in a cage." I told him I would let him out if he would promise to watch him. In about ten or fifteen minutes, he came in the house and told me, "while, you can put him back in the cage if you want to." Needless to say, Gordon had tired Grandpa as he tried to keep up with him in the yard.

He died 52 days before his 95th birthday. So much history had played out in our nation and world in his lifetime. And so many memories of that history died with him. I wish I had taken the time and interest when he was around to have talked with him more about family and the history he could remember. Man had moved from horse and wagon to rockets going into space. Telephones had brought families closer, and automobiles made life a little easier. Grandpa watched all of this without ever being overwhelmed with it. After all, he was the man, who, after selling his tobacco, had bought a bottle of moonshine to celebrate the good crop and on the way home, had probably emptied the bottle. While driving the wagon past a cemetery in the community in the dark of night, he was the one that saw the ghost chasing him home. He galloped the horses and wagon into the yard, jumped out and ran into the house, declaring to everyone what he had seen. With experiences like that, who would be awed by a telephone or rocket? He had such a good sense of humor. One of the radio programs he really loved was the "Grand Ole Opry" on Saturday nights. When he was visiting us in our home, our radio was always turned to the station that carried that program. (Even though it did come on at the same time of "The Hit Parade." Everyone needed a Grandpa like I had.

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