If You're Waiting On Me, You're Backing Up
Behind the Photograph
“Some people leave behind photographs. Others leave behind the way we live our lives.”
I wasn't even there when this photo was taken.
But that doesn't make it any less important.
Sometimes the story belongs to the people in the picture
rather than the person holding the camera.
Standing on the right in the plaid shirt is my Pop. Beside
him, wearing the diamond-patterned blouse, is my Mom, LaRue. Standing with them
are family friends Fred and Martha.
A few years after my dad died, Mom married my step-father, Hugh
Wallace.
Truth be told, almost nobody called him Hugh.
To just about everyone who knew him, he was simply “Doc,” a
nickname he'd carried since he was a boy.
But when he joined our family, he gave us kids a different
name to use.
He wanted us to call him Pop.
And Pop he became.
Not just to us kids, but eventually to the grandchildren as
well.
It suited him.
Before becoming a plumber, Pop served as a platoon sergeant
during World War II.
When he came home, he learned the plumbing trade, and for
the next thirty-some years, whenever someone had a leaking pipe or a faucet
that refused to cooperate, they called Doc.
He was a hardworking man.
Dependable.
Steady.
The kind of fellow you hoped would answer the phone when
something needed fixing.
But if you ask me what I remember most...
It isn't plumbing.
It's baseball.
Countless evenings found us sitting together with a little
transistor radio between us, listening to the St. Louis Cardinals.
Pop introduced me to players I'd never seen in person but
came to know as though they lived just down the road.
He'd cheer when they won, fuss when they lost, and then,
without fail, the next evening at seven o'clock, that little radio would come
back on.
Because that's what baseball fans do.
They believe tomorrow's game might be the one.
Saturdays belonged to Kentucky Lake.
We'd get up before daylight, load the boat, and head for the
water.
Mom packed lunches and enough Cokes to get us through the
day.
Pop fished.
Mom fished.
I...
Well, I mostly tolerated fishing.
Truth be told, I never had much patience for it.
I still don't.
One thing that always made me smile was that Mom loved going
fishing with Pop.
She just didn't like eating fish.
Go figure.
Looking back, though, the greatest thing Pop ever taught me
wasn't how to bait a hook or follow a baseball game.
It was summed up in one sentence.
"If you're waiting on me, you're backing up."
That wasn't just something he said.
It was the way he lived.
To Pop, being ready meant being ready.
Not almost ready.
Not "Give me another minute."
Ready.
That lesson has stayed with me my entire life.
To this day, I'd much rather be fifteen minutes early than
two minutes late.
Funny how life works.
Sometimes the greatest inheritance isn't money.
Sometimes it isn't property.
Sometimes it isn't even a photograph.
Sometimes it's a sentence.
A sentence that quietly shapes the person you become.
Every time I arrive somewhere early...
Every time I find myself sitting in a parking lot waiting
for everyone else...
I smile.
Because if you're waiting on me...
You're backing up.
Western Kentucky
Circa 1960s–1970s · Photographer unknown
Friends gathered together
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