My father—Pops—Russell C. Campbell Jr., died last Sunday. We thought he would pull through, but as he used to say, “Doesn’t matter how tough you are, there is always someone tougher.”

He leaves behind a legacy of love, stories, and friendships.

Pops was born October 22, 1952, to the late Russell Sr. and Margaret (Potts). He was the oldest of seven between the two of them: Dennis, Wayne, Gary, Margaret, Joseph, and Cathy. He lived all over Philadelphia during his youth and eventually graduated from Frankford High School, a fact of which he was always very proud.

In 1972, he began dating Jean Saxton, daughter of the late Charles and Marie Saxton. They married that August. (Ask my mom about that story.) I arrived in March 1973, his namesake, Russell III, and my sister followed in July 1975, my mom’s namesake, Jean.

Pops was a hard worker. He worked for PDK Design and Grind for more than 40 years. But work was only part of the story.

We took road trips around the eastern U.S., camped at Beaver Valley Campground, rooted for the Phillies, fished, played guitar, filled the house with books, wrote poems and songs, and spent a lot of time with friends and family—including his best man and lifelong friend, Frank Harper.

He loved being a grandfather to Bryanna and Zachary Miles and Alyse and Mira Campbell. Bryanna, in particular, kept him up to date on the latest dinosaur findings.

My dad was a collector.

He was not big into curation.

He filled his house with books and, in doing so, instilled a love of reading in his children. But books were just the beginning. He collected plastic dinosaurs, Godzilla figures, baseball cards, playing cards, milk caps, medicine bottles, DVDs, VHS tapes, music, guitars, anything that looked old, anything that looked new—and stories.

Especially stories.

Pops had a great way of spinning a yarn. He told stories in an old-timey, folksy way, and we loved hearing about relatives we had never met and things he had done—or perhaps things he had almost done, or things that had happened more or less the way he remembered them.

We especially loved his made-up campfire stories, which sometimes scared the hell out of us and left us terrified of the woods and yearning for the safe streets of Fishtown.

In Fishtown, Pops became an adopted father to many of our friends who grew up around Oxford Street. I not-so-secretly believed some of them liked him more than they liked me.

After Pops died, my friend Timmy texted me this memory:

Crazy memory came to mind when we all helped move your parents from Oxford Street. Aside from the amount of things we had to quickly pack, there was an old-fashioned meat grinder in the basement near the punching bag. You were already at your wits’ end at this point. You discovered that meat grinder and questioned your dad, “Why the hell do you have this meat grinder??”

His reply, calmly and straight-faced: “To grind meat.”

Classic!

You can’t make the world’s best dollar store chili if you don’t grind your own meat.

I’m fairly certain Pops never ground his own meat.

But he did make an excellent chili and was a bit of a whiz in the kitchen. My favorites were the mornings he made breakfast, especially potatoes and eggs—“Grandpappy’s taters,” as he called them. In his later years, he became fond of making soups, which seemed to require a bit of alchemy but somehow always turned out delicious.

Since this isn’t the usual obituary, I’m going to skip the formal list of who he is “survived by.”

He is survived by a lot of people who loved him and will miss him.

He valued loyalty, family, and friendship. And when Pops loved you, you knew you belonged.

One night when I was a kid, I had a friend sleeping over. Downstairs, Pops, his brother Dennis, and his friend Frank came in. They may have had a beverage or two. The conversation was loud and punctuated by a lot of laughter.

At some point, one of them had the great idea to put on “American Pie.”

And then they all sang.

When the eight-minute song was finally over, upstairs we could hear backs being slapped and the inevitable, “I love you, man.”

My friend Scott asked me if I thought we would be like that when we were older.

I said, “I sure as hell hope so.”

I still do.

So here’s your take-home:

Tell the folks you love that you love them.

Cook the best dollar-store chili you can.

Read books.

Collect things that make absolutely no sense to anyone else.

Tell stories. Even if you embellish them a little.

Play the music loud.

And sing louder.

P.S. There will be no formal funeral or celebration for Pops. That wasn’t what he wanted. Instead, if you want to remember him, gather with people you love. Eat good food. Tell stories. Laugh. Sing.

And be loud.