Remembering PapPap

My paternal grandfather Raymond L Ruffing passed away two days ago on September 7th in Laurel, MD. Ever since he was admitted to the hospital last week I have been thinking a lot about the man I and my cousins always called PapPap. Pap was born in Mifflin, PA on July 2, 1927 to Florian J Ruffing and Nora L Flading. He worked at a steel mill when he was a young man, joined the army during World War II, served as a Washington D.C. police detective and umpired/coached baseball for as long as I can remember. (See this blog post for a previous post about my Pap)

My best memory of my Pap was 4 years ago shortly after my grandmother died. We were all gathered around the family table after the funeral and Pap was telling the story of when he first saw my grandmother. They were both stationed in Germany after World War II, my grandfather with the 508th Parachute Regiment that was affiliated with the 82nd Airborne and my grandmother was with the Womens Army Corps. Pap said he was in a taxi riding down the street when he saw my grandmother walking down the sidewalk and he told the cab driver "You see that woman? I'm going to marry her one day." He had tears in his eyes as he told the story. I will miss you PapPap, I hope you are at peace, and you and Memaw are somewhere having a most excellent time.