Call me Mack

Growing up I had one solid male role model in my life and that was my Pawpaw, William Mack Walker. Pawpaw was just always there no matter what. The things I remember most about him are some of the meanest things he did to me.

I was staying at his house with him one summer when we had the squirrel incident. Grandma Walker, who was my great grandmother who I called grandma, had this huge chestnut tree in her yard and I loved to climb it. I was the best climber of all the kids and could even pick on my older cousin and run away straight up that old tree. Well, like I said it was a chestnut tree and can you guess what is attracted to chestnut trees? Nuts. No. I mean squirrels. I wanted to catch one of these things so badly and I just knew that Pawpaw would know how, he knew everything. I went inside and asked him and he just smiled and explained it all to me. I should have known when he smirked that this was a bad idea.



I was to get a milk crate, a stick, and some string and make a simple trap out of it. Well I did just as I was supposed to although I don't remember what we baited it with because I was just so excited. I sat there damn near all day and finally Mr. Fluffy Tail got curious enough to come investigate under my crate.

In hindsight I don't think the squirrel was curious, I think Pawpaw bribed him some how to do it.

So I pulled the string and with it the stick and like magic the squirrel was mine. I probably ran in a hundred circles around Pawpaw and finally thought of something else entirely. I was so eager to catch this thing that I had not a single clue as to what I was going to do with it now. I did what I thought to be the smart thing and asked him, and he told me to go over to the crate, tilt it over just a bit, reach my hand inside (yeah I should have stopped there, I wasn't a stupid kid but this man was infallible) and yank the squirrel out of there.

Ever tried this? Well I sure as shit do not recommend it. It is truly a wonder I don't wreck my car all the time out of my sheer respect and fear of squirrels. That ornery old man just stood there and laughed and laughed. Not me, that damn thing got me pretty good.

When he died I became the last male in my family that could possibly carry on the family name, but I didn't have the family name. I was Scott Wayne Sevy but I knew that I had to somehow change it. When I first got to Hawai'i I looked into how to legally change my name and that state wanted me to do all types of stuff to change it, lawyers, newspapers, money, a bunch of stuff, so I dropped it. Then in 2008 I had good reason to take my cause back up. I was going to be a father and I was getting deployed so while back home in the good old Commonwealth of Virginia I stopped by the local courthouse, filled out one and maybe a half sheets of paper and BAM, new name. Keeping in the tradition of using our middle names as first names, and since I had been called Scott my entire life, I went with William Scott Walker. I wouldn't argue or be offended, however, if someone were to every once in a while mistake me for Mack. Yeah, you can call me Mack.