Charles Clyde Harper

Another major event that occurred between the last series of posts in 2008 and the restart in 2012 was the death of my Daddy, Charlie Harper. Daddy, or Pop Charlie as we called him, was quite a character. He was very obsessive compulsive (I guess that is where I get mine!) Pop Charlie had Alzheimer's Disease for several years prior to his death. He never forgot who my Mama was, but he thought my brother and I were his brothers. We were able to keep him at home until his death...I think he was better cared for there than he would have been anywhere else. Below I am attaching something I wrote about him after his death:

Charlie Harper

I was proud to call him my Daddy.

People sometimes said I looked like him…my family says I sometimes act like him, at least in his obsessive compulsive ways.

He was always a hard worker. As a bivocational pastor he always worked a fulltime job and as a pastor at the same time. Most of you know that he did not drive, so someone always had to drive him. When Wayne became a legal driver, and later when I got my license, it was our job to take him visiting or to visit in the hospital. The trade off on our part was that he provided a car for us for our other uses as well. I learned a lot from him. I believe his influence was the greatest human one in my becoming a pastor and minister.

Two memories always burst in my mind. One was that he made the best corn bread I ever ate, at least until I ate Wayne’s! Daddy would put lots of bacon grease in it, and he always mixed it with his hands. As a boy I thought that was unsanitary, but I ate it anyway! I even wrote an article one time with my Daddy’s recipe for cornbread.

The other memory was of his fragrance. I remember as a boy getting in his bed and laying on his pillow. I can still remember my thinking that that was what a man smelled like…Old Spice mixed with a little sweat.

In his later year Pop developed Alzheimer’s disease. His life and all of ours changed. One of my friends said that Alzheimer’s was the only illness where you lost your loved one twice…once from the loss of their memories and once from physical death. I remember Mamew telling me one time that Pop was sometimes afraid of the dark, and that she would lay in bed holding him until he went to sleep. When he became bedfast and he had to be fed and changed, he always seemed a little embarrassed that someone had to do so much for him. When I was with him it was always painful for me that he did not know who I was…his own baby boy.

But all that is over now. Pop is in a better place than we are. His body is not weak any longer. His memory is perfect now. The people who greeted him in Heaven are ones who love him, just as we loved him on earth. I am absolutely positive that one day I will see my Daddy again in Heaven.



MILITARY SERVICE

DOB: 1/8/1923

Left Gainesville for Fort McPherson, Atlanta, 11/18/1942
Sent to Camp Barkeley, Texas to train for medical corp.
Sent to William Beaumont General Hospital, El Paso, Texas
Sent to Camp Harrihan, New Orleans, LA to join the 79th Station Hospital
Sent to Camp Shanks, New York for debarkation to Africa
Left New York April 28, 1943
Served in Oran, Africa
Served in Algiers, Africa
June 1943 sent to Casablanca to join the 56th Station Hospital
Served in Marrakesh
Attained rank of Sergeant in charge of pharmacy
December 6, 1945 left Casablanca to return to US
Arrived Newport News, VA December 18, 1945
Transferred to Camp Gordon, Augusta, GA for release
Released from Service on December 23, 1945
Arrived home in Gainesville, GA December 26, 1945