That man on the left walking with his great grandson Sam James Jewell Gander was a man among men.

He died on this day eleven years ago. He was born in a country town with only two paved roads and a coal-fired electric plant that served 500 homes. He stoked his father’s steam engine boiler with slag wood when he was six years old. He contracted yellow fever when he was seven and was in bed for three years in his home on West Spring Street in Lebanon before returning to school.

He quit school before his senior year in high school to help his family when his father developed tuberculosis and could not work. He began as a novice mechanic changing tires to become the best (and most forthright and honest) auto mechanic in Wilson County, finally becoming a partner in a Pontiac dealership, Pan-Am oil and gas distributor and commercial business properties.

He married his high school sweetheart. They remained that way for 75 years.

He went to war as his son was born — me — and served over two years, mostly in the Southern Pacific as a Seabee.

The list goes on and on. He was loved by anyone who met him. Men gave him their highest compliment to him as a “good man.”

And i miss him every day.

Happy 111th birthday, Jimmy Jewell, my best friend.