Thinking of Papaw

I was thinking of my dearly departed grandfather on my mother's side, or papaw as I always called him.

I remember a riddle that he would tell me all the time, and I was thinking of it just now for some odd reason.

On my way to St. Ives,
I met a man with seven wives.
The seven wives had seven sacks,
the seven sacks held seven cats,
each cat had seven kits.
Kits, cats, sacks and wives;
how many were going to St. Ives?

I am not great at math but I would often try to figure it out. I would never arrive at the proper solution, in his mind, because I was over thinking the problem. Conventional wisdom would assume that if the traveler going to St. Ives met someone on the way, then it would mean that the person they met would be traveling away from St. Ives. By this pattern of thinking the answer would be one. There would only be one person in the story going to St. Ives.

Nothing is said of that the group could have been traveling slower than the traveler and they all were headed in the same direction. If this is the case, then... (please bear with me as I am no good at math)

1 Traveler
1 Man (with 7 wives)
7 Wives (each with 7 sacks)
49 Sacks (each with 7 cats)
343 Cats (each with 7 kits)
2,401 Kits

There would be 2,802 items traveling to St. Ives. With this volume of feline objects, one could be certain as to why they would be traveling slower. And seven... SEVEN ...wives! Holy crap!

Papaw also used to tell me how to spell "Cincinnati"... C - I - N - "needle and pin" - "gnat and a fly" - cincinnati - I.

I miss mamaw and papaw both dearly.