Papa Lees PENNY A RIDE

 

I've written about my grandfather, Harry Lee, quite a few times since I started my blog in 2006.  He was an author with two published books … “More Day to Dawn” the story of Thoreau, “High Company” sketches of courage in WW I and a play about the life of St. Francis which had a very short Broadway run in 1928.

Papa Lee, as we called him, was a very dear man and we 5 Lee sisters adored him. We were his only grandchildren and he would spoil us royally whenever he got the chance. In 1937 his Christmas gift to our family was a handwritten book of poems he titled “Penny-a-ride.” It was filled with simple rhymes such as this:

ONE RED APPLE

When Grandma and my Aunt Jeanette were just like we are, little girls, there was a naughty boy would sneak up close behind and pull their curls.

And once he pulled my Grandma’s curls and ran off down the wagon track where’s all the dust and then he turned and rolled a big red apple back.

And when I asked her why he did and where he did and when and how, my Grandma said, “Go ask him child, that naughty boy's your Grandpa now.”