Kim and Kanye and Paul Edward
The link was obviously incorrect;
I was looking for an update about
Kim and Kanye’s latest escapade,
but wound up reading the obituary
of a man who wore oversized
glasses, tinted, his face thick with
wrinkles from too many smiles or
worries, dressed in a wide-wale
corduroy jacket, long collared shirt
and thick tie – all in earth tones
and probably a photo from the last
decade or two or three, his name is
(I don’t like to say ‘was’ for some
reason), Paul Edward; he died in
Ohio but wasn’t born there – maybe
marriage or work took him there
from Indiana (it’s next door after all),
but at the end he was alone in Ohio
because Agnes preceded him in death
by fifteen years, as had all his siblings,
Mary and John and especially his
baby sister Judith who died in 1932
and that must have been terrible;
they had just one child that survived
to write this obituary but he
lives in Chicago; I wonder how many
friends he had at the end of 92 years
because he had many at one time
it seems – he was high school
football captain, and during the war
he was drafted into the Army and
stationed in the Philippines, his post
in hospitals and recovery wards, and
the obituary said many wounded
soldiers kept in touch with him
over the years, but they’re all
gone now too; he ran a chicken farm
for a while after the war, then
a hardware store and he looks like
the guy you could ask anything and
he’d quietly talk you through the nuts
and bolts of repairing what needed
repairing (and I can imagine him
complaining that folks don’t repair
things any more, they just replace
them – as a commentary about
his generation, the one that saved
the world and was being replaced
now); they said he was a
well-travelled man, but besides
the Philippines all it mentioned was
Akron, Cleveland and Toledo (and
I’ve been to these places, and they’re
nice, but I don’t think of that as
well-travelled), his story quickly
added he made friends wherever
he went and that might make
all the difference in the world;
oh, and he was a Methodist and
sang in a choir for more than
50 years, some of them with his
wife before she passed, and that’s
where he met her – her name was
Agnes and I guess there’s no better
reason to have a choir, besides
praising the Lord, of course; and if
you care about Paul Edward please
don’t send flowers, just give some
money to a church choir instead;
that’s when I remembered what I
was searching for in the first place
but I don’t care as much about Kim
and Kanye right now.
James Callahan 