Levin Gillis Brittingham took me to Ocean City and the Chincoteague carnival and put me on the merry-go-round…that’s what my Dads always told me, no matter how hard I try though, I can’t remember it. I only have a few memories that are of Pop but the few I do have, mean very much…

Our back yard had a field behind it, and it usually had a crop of one thing or another growing in it. I was out there with Pop one day and he pulled up what I think was a turnip, right from the field, ran his hands all around it to get the dirt off, and just started cutting pieces off with his pocket knife and eating it! Right there in the yard. I remember he always carried a pocket knife. That was my first and last time saying yes to a turnip, I’ll tell you that! <yick>

It was 1976 and I was 8 years old when my dad took me over to visit with him-he said it would be the last time I get to see him because he was very sick. The room was dimly lit and all I remember was sitting with him on the edge of his bed for a little while.

At his viewing in Pocomoke, my Dad told me not to be afraid as he held my hand and walked me up to say goodbye to him. That was the first time I ever saw my Dad cry.

Daddy thinks Pop & Gam met at Signpost school, Pops family was working the Sinnickson sawmill so that’s what had them up on the northern end of the Eastern Shore because when Pop was born his family lived in Wardtown, Virginia which is in Northampton County at the southern end of the Eastern Shore.

Married for 52 years