Today I am thinking about the only grandfather I ever knew, my mother's step-father, Herbert Blackwell, known to us as Paw. The fathers of my parents, William Allen Chancery and Christopher Columbus Johnson, had died before I was born, but I had Paw.
When I knew him Paw lived on a farm outside Evergreen, Alabama with my grandmother, Mary America Ridgeway Johnson Blackwell (better known as Maw) and my cousins, Willie (Buddy) and Janie Johnson.
We looked forward to visits to the farm to see them. Life on their farm was quite different from my life in McDavid, Florida. Their water came from a wel...