He called me Pilgrim.
We shared a love of peach milkshakes, pickles, peanut M&M’s, home grown tomatoes, blueberry anything, and we’d fight over Shirley Pitner’s stack cake.
He taught me how to throw a frisbee, cast a line, shoot a variety of weapons, train a dog, clean my glasses, and identify trees in any season.
Oh, and the best advice he ever gave me that I evoke multiple times a day (and it shows): “Eat all you can, every time you can, ’cause there ain’t no tellin’ what might happen before you can eat again.”
We listened to Rush Limbaugh and Patsy Cline when I rode in his truck. We watched Star Trek and The Twilight Zone when I stayed with them when I was young. He bought me a microscope, and my first sleeping bag, but not the My Little Pony kite from McDonalds. And we have never let him forget it.
My first (and last!) deer hunting trip was under his watchful eyes and sharp tongue.
I couldn’t do anything right, but he’d sometimes concede that I was doing alright for a wimpy little girl. This was said in jest, and primarily to get me riled so I could do whatever it was I thought I couldn’t.
He thought I should wear heels to work every day and that I should stay redheaded.
He mowed my yard and always made me feel safe and protected when I was with him. Because I was. But he also made sure I knew how to protect myself from the onset.
I get my temper and love of outdoors from him.
He said I ate spaghetti neater than any kid he ever saw and warned all the boys, “better watch, Amy’s a pretty good shot”.
He’d rather walk and carry a Ford hubcap than drive a Chevrolet.
His favorite color was red.
He could name any bird in the sky and nearly any bug that crawled, jumped, or flew. His idea of a good time was sitting on the front porch watching the hummingbirds dive and fight, speculating on what the clouds’ shapes resembled, and counting how many songs a mockingbird could imitate. He would spot four leaf clovers effortlessly, and drive me crazy by telling me there was four where I was looking when I couldn’t even see one.
He loved deer hunting, fishing, eating, and aggravating me, not necessarily in that order.
He was never late. If he was five minutes early, in his mind that meant he was ten minutes late.
He had the bluest eyes and the strongest hands of any man I’ve ever met.
He looked like a cross between Santa Claus and Charlie Daniels and had a big deep voice to accompany his stature. I doubt I would have recognized him without his beard. His hearing rivaled a bat’s and his memory recall was something to be envied. He took care of his teeth but he said his poor ol’ big toe just wanted to LEAVE.
In his younger years he kept piranhas in a fish tank in his dining room and a black female chow dog outside.
He made his living pushing a knife across the cutting room of Bike Athletic. The knife itself weighed forty pounds.
He served on the Planning Commission the last several years, and took that role very seriously, as he did most everything….except getting even with his cousins. His favorite prank ever involved the EPA.
He was frugal, and made me & Aunt Bren positively crazy switching back and forth between Comcast and Charter. He baited them against each other to get the best deal. The WiFi password changed at least annually.
His idea of the perfect cereal was Honey Nut Cheerios mixed with Raisin Bran Crunch. If you really wanted to be fancy, slice you up a banana for it.
He liked reading TWRA magazines, books on politics, and just about anything I wrote.
He knew everything and you couldn’t tell him nothin’, but I did beat him at Jeopardy the other night.
He was tough as a pine knot, living through cancer that was supposed to kill him in the 90’s (leaving him with one working lung), two colon ruptures, countless close calls in the wild, a hip replacement, barroom brawls, and one mean ass rooster. He wasn’t scared of anything that I know of, except maybe rattlesnakes. So many of his stories involved being a thrashing, bloody mess at some point. He SURVIVED so much.
The man was tough as 60 penny nails.
And he ain’t here no more.

And I have been up all night trying to work out how that’s possible. He was larger than life. He was a part of my everyday life from the time I entered this world. Who is gonna pick on me now? Who is gonna tell me I’m doing it wrong when I haven’t even started doing it yet? Who is gonna keep me informed on the doings in the news, since I can’t bring myself to watch it myself? I feel untethered.
I’m sure he’s thinking I’m being dramatic, that I’ll be fine, but he’s also smiling because he’s given me a good story. He went out with some excitement, and I’m sure if he had lived to tell about this last one it’d be a hum-dinger, especially by the fourth or fifth telling. I’m sure he’s regaling all his hunting buddies with it upstairs now.
Thank you to Seymour Fire Department and Sevier County Sheriff’s Department. Y’all are some of the kindest people I’ve ever encountered. Tragedy is no stranger in your line of work, and I’m thankful you do what you do and do it so well, your execution is flawless.
We’ve shed a lake full of tears today, all fighting over who loved him best.
Not me. Not me.

THIS is his tribute, not the little post I made last night. Y’all might have to endure fifty more, I just don’t know. A lot to be said about my favorite human. I was rooting through paperwork hunting some stuff and came across several years of kill tags. This was a shot straight to my heart, just thinking of all the stories if these tags could talk. I feel sure I’ve heard them all twice but I don’t know which goes with what. 🦌