Tradition / Alabama Theater / Embarrasment

I came in to work today and really need to get some stuff done, but then I got the email about this blog and I can't stop thinking about "Fiddler on the Roof". When anyone ask me my favorite movie of all time, I unavoidably end up coming back around to "Fiddler on The Roof". After the laughs and mocking has worn off, people usually end up asking why.

I know I can't really put it into words for them. But it reminds me of Paw-Paw. Because he watched it with me many times. And I remember the night he took us to the Alabama Theater in Birmingham to watch it on the big screen.

And so now, whenever I watch the movie, which is about an annual occurrence in our home, I am drawn back to hot, muggy days in Alabama spent with Paw-Paw. My ears ring with, always too loud, Paw-Paw yelling the one simple word that has come to define him for me - "Tradition". Of course my mind also races back to the dance he would perform after screaming that word in my ears. Right there in the downtown streets of Birmingham, flailing his arms like nobody else in the world was watching, and stomping on that concrete as if his main intention was to crack the city in two.

Paw Paw is full of life. Full of voice. Full of energy.

I think he learned at some point what it means to be a human being and not a human doing.

And I am grateful he has left me with that.