Buddies

His name was Troy and he was my cousin on my mother’s side. He died this year and I miss him every day. He went into the Army just at the end of World War Two and I guess we were buddies, as the photo indicates. When I received my military discharge years later, he was recovering from back surgery so we spent a lot of time together, just riding around and talking. Somehow, that never got boring. He introduced me to a man who helped me get my first real job after the Navy. It was the job that launched me into my professional career, but I’m not sure I ever thanked him enough.

He was the kind of person who, if you called him late at night and told him you had a flat tire and didn’t want to get your shirt dirty changing it, would come do it for you. He might tell about it for years, but he would come. Many country folks I’ve known in my life are like that. Goodness is more of a duty and a habit than a choice.

He was more like a son than a nephew to my daddy, who wouldn't ride in a fishing boat with anyone else. I'm not sure what that meant, but I am sure it meant something. He was also a person who would spend part of his "mustering-out" pay to buy a three-year old boy an army outfit during a period of history in which being a soldier was the grandest thing imaginable.

When his wife Charlene came down with Alzheimer’s way too early, he cared for her without complaint. He would dress and feed her then she would sit on the couch and stare into space, not saying a word. It was that way until she died.

I never went to see him enough. What dear friend can we ever name who we honestly think we went to see enough? I did stop to see him anytime I came to town to visit. Toward the end, he would sometimes tell my sister and me the same stories he had told the last time. We didn’t care. Many of them centered on how spoiled I was as a child and how perfect she was. But then, we were Army buddies so he put up with me.

The last time I saw him, he made me promise to be a pallbearer for him when the time came. Of course I said yes. At the time, he was a card-carrying member of the NRA, and I was a card-carrying member of the ACLU, but we never spoke about it. I suppose that’s what true friendship means.

All ready for Inspection.