Daddy was a good man – decent in the best sense, fair, and honest.

He took his faith seriously, but it wasn’t about abstract theology. It was about actions. For him, what you do is immeasurably more important than what you say. The one statement I heard more than any other was his version of the Golden Rule, “Treat people the way you’d want to be treated.”

For me, Daddy put the “ethic” in work ethic. I remember exactly where we were standing when he gave me my first paycheck – and how serious he was about it. I was seven years old, and it was a big yellow King Edward check. He held it out and said, “Boy, always earn these.” Then he gave it to me and said he was proud of me.

When he went to work at the experiment station, he told me he maintained the equipment like it was his own and spent state money like it was coming out of his own pocket. They must have loved him for that.

Daddy spent most of his life in tobacco shades and barns, in corn and soybean fields – season after season of planting, irrigating, cultivating, and picking. He told me that farming was a good life but it was a hard living. I definitely saw the good life when I was growing up, especially hunting and fishing with him. He and I would take turns – one pulled the vines and the other shot the squirrel. I shot a squirrel once, and when he couldn’t find a bullet hole, he said, “You must have scared him to death.” When he saw my first deer, he said, “Boy, you shot a goat.” We fished in Lake Talquin, Rocky Comfort Creek, and I don’t know how many ponds. I was in college before I figured out why he’d taught me to paddle a boat three years before he taught me how to fish.

It really was a good life, but I saw how hard it was as a way to make a living. I remember when Mama drove me to a field one hot afternoon with a jar of ice water to hand up to Daddy when he got the tractor back to the end of the row. I also remember her driving out to the Parramore place one night with something for him to eat. I walked out in the pasture he was disking and stood in the tractor’s headlights so he’d see me and I could give him his supper.

I think one of his main motivations for working day and night, year after year, was because he wanted to provide for his family. He sweated through two shirts a day because he had a wife and three knotheaded children to take care of – he took that responsibility seriously. He wanted us to have everything we needed…and some things we wanted. When I was off at school and we’d talk on the phone, he’d end every conversation with “Call me if you need me.” What I heard in that was, “I expect you to work hard just like I have, but if you need me, I’m able to help you.” It was very important to him that he be there for us, and he was. He was a good son and brother…a good husband…a good father and grandfather. And he was a very good neighbor.

There’s one more thing….  Over the last few years, he wasn’t able to take care of us like he always had. Mama and Jill and Jackie became his angels. They sat with him around the clock for months, which became 2 ½ years. They anticipated his needs and kept him comfortable. With the help of the remarkable folks from Hospice, they nursed him back to health time and again. No amount of money could have bought the care he received. Jan was incredibly helpful when she came down and stayed. Jill’s children, Keaton and Daniel, and Daniel’s girlfriend, BJ, and Jan and Glenn’s children, Roy, Ashlan, and Hunter, all spent time with him. Daddy always had the food he grew up with. His bed was turned so he could see out the windows. There were family pictures all around him. Family and friends visited often. And through all that time, his brothers and sisters, nephews and nieces, and countless good neighbors all took good care of the caregivers. Daddy would have appreciated you all stepping in for him, and it meant everything to us.

Misc

He loved playing jokes on people, especially finding ways to scare them. We could spend hours telling those stories. On the other hand, he wasn’t a big fan of jokes being played on him. He wasn’t too happy when he drank his coffee one April Fool’s Day after we replaced the sugar with salt. Bad idea…

We used to beg him to take us to the J.M. Fields store in Tallahassee. He’d always say, “I’ll take you to H.M.’s fields!”

He was telling me about his plan to start a pick-your-own vegetable business. I asked him if he thought people would drive all the way from Tallahassee to pick their own vegetables. He said, “If I charge enough, they will.”

Joe said that H.M. was the neatest farmer he ever knew. When H.M. retired form the experiment station, Dr. David Wright (his boss) said that he learned more from H.M. than he did in all his years in college.

H.M. loved the outdoors, and especially, his farm. In fact, the casket piece is made from greenery his children gathered from the farm.