Mourning in the Hall

Today my uncle died, following complications resulting from brain surgery. He was a great man solely because he was a good man, and that is quite an achievement.

When he was young, in East Tennessee, he looked like Elvis at a time when that was desirable. My mother, his younger sister, told me once how she was always popular as a young girl because all the other girls wanted to have a reason to come visit the girl whose brother looked like Elvis.

He married young -- too young for his own mother's liking! A few years ago I attended my cousin's wedding, his granddaughter, and the band called for a dance only for married couples. As the song progressed, they began to name off years: one, two, five, ten, fifteen, twenty. The idea was that, as they gave the length of time you had been married, you would leave the floor. He and his wife were dancing at the very last but for one couple in their nineties.

He owned a small business in civil engineering, and by means of it raised a family. Twice at least his honest nature caused him to be defrauded by people he had elected to trust, but he stood good for all the debts they had run up in his name.

For the entire part of his life that I knew him, he was a deacon in his church. He lived according to the strict rule of Southern Baptists, which he was, not drinking nor smoking nor chasing after girls. He made one exception I can recall, allowing a keg onto his property to celebrate his son's graduation from college. He was invariably kind, and almost invariably full of a gentle good humor.

He is survived by his wife, two children, four grandchildren, and several great-grandchildren -- I am not sure of the number myself.

We will miss him.