Mister Babb, the manager, introduced me to the two permanent workers at the city’s Cedar Grove Cemetery: “Dub” and “Mister Bill.” No last names.

I have written about all three men and the cemetery in my Lebanon Democrat columns and posts here.

Dub intrigued me and earned my respect as a hardworking, good man. This is about what he and Mister Bill did for a living as well as what my summer job entailed through three summers of high school.

He and Mister Bill put me to work as the primary mower of the grounds and trimmer of the cemetery stones. Then, we got to our real job. Digging graves.

My first grave digging came about a week into going to work there. Mister Babb had told us exactly where as we put up our tools one afternoon.

The next morning, we the gathered the tools from the stone structure with multiple uses. It was where we met that first morning. It was where the mowers and tools were stored. It was the refuge in bad weather although i don’t recall ever using it, maybe once, even in thunderstorms (i was young and impervious…and not all that bright. I was a bit queasy when i first learned that bodies in their caskets were stored there in the winter when the temperatures rendered the ground too hard to dig the graves, delayed until the warmer weather allowed the grave to be dug). We didn’t use back hoes back then.

We went to the grave site and Mister Babb, whose home was on the city property where the current cemetery office now stands. He pointed to the plot which Mister Bill and Dub griped about because it was clear by the name where the grave was to be.

The old man left. With Mister Bill giving us more direction than we needed, Dub and i took the old 2×6 lumber strips and outlined the length and width of the grave, 2½ feet wide and 8 feet long. I was relieved a bit when Mister Bill, confirmed by Dub, informed me the graves at Cedar Grove were only dug to four feet deep due to the water level being too high to go down to six feet.

We laid out the 2×6 worn, wood planks, dark gray from use, age, and moisture. The long ones marked the sides of the grave to be; the short ones marked the ends. We took straight bladed shovels and dug next to the woods for the first cut. The first pass of digging took up all of the sod and was deposited on the side of the grave away from where mourners might gather.

Then we began to dig in earnest.

Dub was usually the lead on the digging. He would take the pickaxe and loosen the dirt a foot or so deep from one end to half way. Then either Mister Bill or i would take over and work from the other end with the pick. The third person would shovel out the dirt onto the sod on one side of the grave. Then, we would start the process over again: loosen the dirt with the pick and then shovel it out until we reached 4 1/2 feet. Once finished digging, we smoothed out the floor and sides of the grave, cleaned around the grave, adding any loose dirt to our pile and then covering the pile with a green fabric.

i have told many stories and will tell more about my three summers as a grave digger. But this is for Dub.

i really didn’t know him other than at work. He always had on bib jeans and a tee shirt with a worn sports coat over them. He wore brogans and a fedora as equally worn as the sports coat. This attire was standard throughout the year, hot, humid, Tennessee summers included. He did shed the sports coat when digging the graves but that was it.

It seemed to me, he was always smiling, one that just made you feel like you were his friend. Occasionally, when something a bit odd happened, or one of us did something askew, i detected the smile becoming wry, with a slight shaking of his head beneath the fedora.

When i left my summer job of grave digging to go to college, the three of us said goodbye in an orderly fashion. i never saw Dub or Mister Bill. Mister Bill’s son contacted me a number of years when i wrote a column about my grave digging. i don’t know how to find out what happened to him, complicated because i only knew him as “Dub,” Not to mention it was 1958, 66 years ago.

There are a huge number of people whom i’ve lost track who i would like to sit down and talk about who we were and what happened afterwards.

Dub is high on my list.

A work that still needs a great deal of editing:

the first time the boy was on the Hickory Ridge farm
he doesn’t remember:
he was a babe in the war that didn’t end all wars.
the boy does remember the old farmer man
his pear shaped, white haired, hard-worn, sweet wife;
he remembers
the old farmer man rousting him
from the duck-down bed before daybreak,
when he would watch
the old farmer man standing in the new bathroom,
added on to the tinned roofed farmhouse
after they got indoor plumbing
where the old man stood before the cracked mirror
with the metal sink with a hand pumped spigot
to draw the well water for the morning ritual:
the old man soaked and washed his face,
then took the badger hair shaving brush
to lather up his face with the mug of shaving soap,
opening the razor blade out of the handle,
stropping it on the leather strap
hanging from the hook on the wall,
then cocking the blade while
pulling up his chin to stroke the razor blade
up and down until his face skin
was as smooth as a baby’s bottom;
after the boy jumped into his jeans,
they headed for the southeast pasture
where the old farmer man, leaning on the top fence line,
cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled “sooey, sooey;”
the boy wondered why, since the hogs
were in a sty about three-quarters on the other side
of the farm, near the barn;
then a cow appeared over the hill,
then another, and another
until the half-dozen or so had collected at the fence;
the old farmer man opened the gate,
walking in with the boy beside him;
as dawn was breaking, the two led the cows
to the barn, while along the way,
the boy watched the old farmer lady
in the chicken coop, collecting eggs
in her white muslin apron
as they continued to the barn
into the stalls with feeder troughs in the front;

the old farmer man pulled out
two, small, three-legged stools from their niche,
along with two metal buckets,
handing one of each to the boy, who,
watching the master,
would stroke the cow’s teats
producing a trickle while the farmer man
filled his bucket and then again from a couple of more cows
before they poured the milk into
the tin milk churns and the old man screwed on the tops
to take back to the farmhouse where several would be put
on the roadside for the diary to pick up and homogenize;
one was saved for their larder.

the boy and the old farmer walked about twenty yards from the barn
to the pig sty where a hog and two sows
roiled in the mud;
they slopped the pigs;
the boy wondered why this last act,
slopping the pigs rolling in the mud
stinking to high heaven
was so satisfying him later in life.

the old farmer and the boy walked
back on the beaten path to the gate from the fields,
passed the mound of the fruit cellar
to the screened-in back porch
where white muslin covered the immediate victuals
for the next day or two
including the butter churn,
which the old farmer’s wife would fill
with the milk from the one of the milk cans
to pound the plunger again and again
until she could scoop the butter on top
with her ladle;
she had her butter,
as well as the old farmer’s buttermilk for breakfast;
the three sat down for breakfast
at the wood table with six caned-seat chair,
all painted white just like the wood-walled kitchen;
she served up the fried eggs, over-easy,
with bacon and grits with biscuits,
butter and blackberry jam
she had canned in the spring;
the old farmer drank buttermilk
concluding with coffee;

the old farmer went to the front porch
to sit in the rocking chair
where the boy would climb into his lap,
feel the scratchiness of the old cardigan on his cheek
as the old farmer rocked and smoked his pipe.
there are times now, the boy,
older than the farmer ever reached,
wishes he could have kept on rocking there
forever…

i don’t know, but i suspect i covered my tracks with an alibi to my parents. Maybe not. It did not matter. i was not going to miss this momentous occasion.

Jim Hicks and Billy “the Alligator” Parsons picked me up mid-morning at Middle Tennessee State University in Jim’s hump-backed Volvo. As we neared Atlanta, we stopped for gas and Billy needed to shave. He used the service station’s restroom, which only had cold water. When he emerged he looked like some bird had been pecking at his face. “Cold water,” he explained.

We parked and walked to the brand new Fulton County Stadium. It was the first game for the Braves in Atlanta. They had moved from Milwaukee. .It was the first major league ball park i had seen. i was stunned with the vastness. Awed. We found our seats with several other Kappa Sigma fraternity brothers, including Jim’s brother Alan and Kenny Gibbs. Alan, in his senior year at Vanderbilt had attended the Master’s the previous weekend and stayed over through Monday to watch Jack Nicklaus win in a playoff. i was impressed with Alan as well.

Sitting behind us were a group of Kappa Theta sorority sisters including my lifelong friend, Susan Butterfield. It was a fun group altogether.

The game was special for me in that the Braves in their opening game in Atlanta were playing my Pittsburgh Pirates. i began rooting for the Bucs in the early 1950’s and my enthusiasm had not waned. Willie Stargell was their star right fielder.

Being college boys and having no sense whatsoever, we decided to drink a beer an inning. We did. Nine beers is rather a lot for one sitting. But this was a bit more challenging. Through nine innings, the score was tied at 2-2. Tony Cloninger, the Braves starting pitcher continued on the mound. We continued to drink a beer an inning. Blessedly, my Willie Stargell his a home run for a Pirate’s 3-2 win, and i didn’t have to drink another beer.

We said goodbye to the ladies and most of us crashed in Kenny Gibbs’s hotel room. Obviously, i don’t remember much, but i do remember sleeping the floor with a seat cushion for a pillow and a curtain for a blanket.

Now that is some way to begin my watching live major league baseball:

My dear bride pointed out to me when i got home from golf, i had inadvertently published the beginnings of my post about Willie. Mea culpa. i’m trying again.

i’ve been watching, listening, and reading all of the praises (deserved) of Willie Mays who crossed over the bridge yesterday at 93.

Many of the accolades claim Willie was the best baseball player ever. i remain amazed that folks could claim such.

In my mind, folks who try to assess baseball players from, possibly 1786, until today, are barking up a tree where the there are no squirrels. Equipment, field conditions, injuries, medical advances, baseball quality and consistency, specialization, coaching (from an absurd age, almost infancy), money, number of games in the season, information, oh, yes, PEDs, and lord knows what else have made such comparisons ridiculous. But the public wants to compare: they are good at being illogical and ridiculous. And the sports moguls eat it up because they make money on it. So we have it.

Correction: i do not have it. Comparing Walter Johnson to Bob Gibson to Gerrit Cole is worse than comparing apples and oranges. It’s comparing high tech to farming. i’m out.

So i will not state Willie Mays was the best. i certainly argued with my father enough about whether he was better than Mickey Mantle, but we never reached an agreement.

However, there is no one, no one who made me happier than Willie Mays when i watched him play. He was magic. He was made even more magic by Dizzy Dean and Pee Wee Reece in their description in the Falstaff Beer Game of the week on Saturdays. It really didn’t matter who announced. Willie made it magic. You could feel the joy.

i was a Pirate fan. Bill Mazeroski, Don Hoak, Dick Groat, Smoky Burgess were in a place of honor. And if you ask me about the greatest baseball player of all time, my vote would be for Roberto Clemente.

But, as i have noted, baseball greatness is arbitrary.

Willie?

i smile when i think of watching him.

Rest in the peace, incredible and forever, young man.

Say hey!

As i explained last year on Father’s Day, my brother, sister, and i didn’t call him “Father.” We didn’t call him “Dad.” We called him “Daddy,” always. His grandchildren and great grandchildren (there was only one talking before he left us) called him “Grandpa.”

And so he was.

In all of the stuff i’ve written about him, i don’t think i’ve said one of best things about him. Several years ago, Peter Thomas and i concluded that the most consistent and most important thing about the most effective leaders in history is they did the right thing.

Daddy did the right thing. Always. Sometimes it was tough to do the right thing. He did it anyway.

Most folks believe their father was the best. They probably were for them. So i’ll join that choir.

My graphics capabilities stink. Photos are with with him and me, 1944, a month before he went to war; with my daughter Blythe, 1974 in San Pedro California; with my daughter Sarah, 1998 in his home on Castle Heights Avenue in Lebanon, Tennessee; and with his great grandson Sam, c2010 on a walk in Deer Park community – Blythe, Sam’s mother will have to straighten me out on the year.

And on many occasions pertaining to Daddy, i repost a poem i wrote about him that he liked very much:

Hands

When most folks meet him,
they notice steel blue eyes and agility
his gaze, gait and movements
belie the ninety-five years;
but
those folks should look at his hands:
those hands could make Durer cry
with their history and the tales they tell.

His strength always was supple
beyond what was suggested from his slight build.
His hands are the delivery point of that strength.
His hands are not slight:
His hands are firm and thick and solid –
a handshake of destruction if he so desired,
but
he has used them to repair the cars and our hearts;

His hands are marked by years of labor with
tire irons, jacks, wrenches, sledges, micrometers on
carburetors, axles, brake drums, distributors
(long before mechanics hooked up computers,
deciphering the monitor to replace “units”
for more money in an hour than he made in a month
when he started in ’34 before computers and units).

His hands pitched tents,
made the bulldozers run
in war
in the steaming, screaming sweat of
Bouganville, New Guinea, the Philippines.

His hands have nicks and scratches
turned into scars with
the passage of time:
a map of history, the human kind.
Veins and arteries stand out
on the back of his hands,
pumping life itself into his hands
and
beyond;
the tales of grease and oil and grime,
cleaned by gasoline and goop and lava soap
are etched in his hands;
they are hands of labor,
hands of hard times,
hands of hope,
hands of kindness, caring, and love:
oh love, love, love, crazy love.

His hands speak of him with pride.
His hands belong
to the smartest man I know
who has lived life to the maximum,
but
in balance, in control, in understanding,
gaining respect and love
far beyond those who claim smartness
for the money they earned
while he and his hands own smartness
like a well-kept plot of land
because he always has understood
what was really important
in the long run:
smarter than any man I know
with hands that tell the story
so well.