Matt Osborn
My granddaddy Frank died 27 years ago tonight. He had just gotten on his beloved Tennessee Walking Horse, Smokey, to ride in Gadsden’s Christmas Parade. A few minutes later, he was helped off for the last time. If you got to go out, lord knows we can only be so lucky to be doing what we love when we go.
My other granddad, Hood, died when I was 7 so I didn’t get much of a chance to know him too well. But me and PawPaw Frank had seven more years. He got me into riding horses. And I got him into collecting baseball cards.
When he died, my Granny Jean wanted me to have his baseball cards. She also gave me a pair of his dress shoes.
They didn’t fit too great at the time. But soon enough they fit just fine.
We laid Frank down in ‘92. But not his shoes.
Since then, they walked a high school graduation stage in ‘96, across a bigger one at LSU’s graduation in 2000, and an even bigger one at Coleman Coliseum in ‘03.
They’ve seen countless courtrooms and ceremonies from Texas to DC, and they’ve touched the ground in England, Germany, and Turkey.
They strolled through the Supreme Court and walked damn near every square itch of the Pentagon. They’ve stood next to generals and in the Secretary of Defense’s office. They’ve sat through Senate hearings at the US Capitol, and this one time, they took a walk through the West Wing at the White House.
More important than all that though — they got to dance at his granddaughter’s Orange Beach wedding in ‘17. And this past July, they walked his great-granddaughter down the aisle in Baton Rouge.
Yeah, Pawpaw Frank left us 27 years ago today. But he and his shoes have been everywhere ever since.
