Buck's Obit

Ed. Note:  Buck sent this letter to the Sheffield River Rats who attended a Bulldog Breakfast on March 6 during his annual 4,000 mile Great Circle road trip from Boston, to Chicago, to Nashville, to The Shoals, to Tuscaloosa, to Daphne, to Beaufort, to Kill Devil Hills, to Valley Forge, and finally back to Boston.

Hi, Everybody!

It was great to see you at the Bulldog breakfast.  After that I went down to visit with Louis in Tuscaloosa and then on to Daphne for a visit with mom.  On my way back home I stopped in Beaufort, SC to visit with Bob Proctor.  Bob took me out on his boat and also toured me around Beaufort in a carriage tour.  So I had great visits to break up my journey to get back home.

Below is the talk I gave at the Bulldog breakfast.  I want to thank you for coming on such short notice.  I really enjoyed seeing you and the other “boys”.  I think I was blessed to grow up in the time and place that we did.  Also, I fell blessed to have grown up with you.  Actually, I guess we are still growing up as my clothes keep getting smaller.

I now am homeless in my hometown of Sheffield.  Stan Brook put me up for the night, but it is odd to pass by my old home and know that a new family is living there.  Somehow I feel uprooted.   Sheffield is not on my travel path to visit my daughter in Nashville and my Mom in Daphne, but you and the other folks are very special to me.  I guess I feel like all of our class are my extended family!

If what is below is not what you think I said it is  my fault for as I get older I get a little forgetful.  So I hope you are patient with me.  Anyway this is what I wanted to say:

Bulldog Breakfast

Louis Buettner asked me to get you to send him material for the SHS website.  I think he has done a great job with that.  If you haven’t looked at it you are missing out.  Carol Cahoon put a great story there about her date with Elvis.  So send him some of your stories about our time in school or what you did with your grandkids last week or your vacation plans for the coming year.  Or perhaps some of your dreams and hopes for your and your children’s future!

Now for the really personal stuff.  I’m planning my funeral and I want you to give to the Sheffield Education Fund.  I want you to spread the word about SEF among our classmates as well as neighbors and friends.  Now let me tell you about this.

I had a stent put in a blocked artery in my heart in 2003.  A month ago I had a cardioversion to correct atrial fibrillation which is a condition when two of the four chambers in the heart are not pumping.  The number of days I have left is less than the number I’ve already had.  The number of days left for all of us are getting fewer.

Before going to the hospital for cardioversion I started my obituary and funeral plans.  I don’t know if any of you had this procedure.  They put a metal pad on my back and one on my chest.  They gave me an IV to put me to sleep and then shocked my heart to stop it so that it would be in rhythm when it started up again.  I think for a second or so my heart was stopped and that is my definition of being dead.  So in effect I am born again and given a second chance.  Actually, I have had a number of chances.

I’ve talked to all of you about SEF before and our class total gift is now $3156.  Our legacy can be making the world better than when we got here.  We all have demands on us – kids, grandkids, family church, friends.  We all have this in common.

What we also have in common are those formative years of our youth – I think we were blessed by the time and place we grew up in.  I’m proud of the teachers and community that gave me my start in life.

Mrs. Fosterr died a few weeks back.  She was one of those teachers who provided the foundation for my life.  I think we had a great group of teachers.  The kids in Sheffield deserve as good a start as we had.  In fact they deserve better.  They need our help.  We can provide it.

I’m getting grandchild #9 in September.   My daughter told me this a few days ago in Nashville.  Like you, I want my grandkids to have a great start in life.  That is my personal goal.

However, my prayer is all of us together can give kids we don’t know a good start that is better than we had.  These kids are growing up in a far different world than we had.  All I can remember as temptations were cigarettes and beer.  Now with movies and TV kids are bombarded with sex.  AIDS is a word we never heard but is killing millions around the world.  Drugs are prevalent and can destroy a life.

Today may be the last we will meet.  I hope that is not the case but as I told you, I have less time in front of me than behind.

About 40 years ago one of my ministers suggested we write our obituary and I did but it has been lost in all my moves.  So I’ve started over.  I understand this is just about what happened to the paper Mrs. Daves asked us to write about where we wanted to be in 10 years after graduation.  That also was lost in a fire.

So you are all invited to my funeral and I want it to be a celebration of life.  I would like you to say at my funeral,  Buck wanted the kids in his home town to have a great start in life!  I ask you to contribute as much as you can; a little or a lot make a contribution to and give a gift to SEF

At my funeral, Stan can tell about helping me get through Physics at Florence State.  Jim Holland and Ronald Gene can talk about those days on the Silver Jets.  Jimmy Todd maybe can remember when we were scrimmaging and I hit him with a block and he said “Bucky this is just practice, we’re on the same team”.  Maybe Louis Buettner will remember when I beat him up.  Ralph can tell about how we won the TVC track meet.   These are just some examples but I want a celebration of the joy of life at my funeral!

 I expect to be buried over in Oakwood cemetery by my Dad in the family plot.  I want to take the opportunity now to invite you to my funeral.  Stan’s wife Nell made a comment to me last year about her life “Its been a great ride”.  I can’t remember the context but the thought stuck with me.  I think it’s been a great ride!   Click on this link to the poem.

Let’s honor our teachers and give the kids a chance to have a better life.  What better way can we celebrate the gift of life that God has given us, that helping others of God’s children!  What a chance for a living legacy!  It would be great if some kids due to our help will be able to say years from now, “Its Been a Great Ride”.

Think about how you want to be remembered.  Give what you can to SEF as every little bit counts and what you give may change the life of a kid you don’t know.

You are all invited to my funeral, but I hope you won’t be disappointed if I put it off for as long as I can.  However when the Lord calls I want to be ready to answer.  Either way whether we can meet here again or on that heavenly shore I want you to know how much I value the time we spent together.

POSTSCRIPT

Jim Holland told me this story after the breakfast of how he had given religious papers to a friend for years.  One day he knocked on the friend’s door and started talking to him about Jesus and being saved.  Jim found out this friend had not read any of the information he had left, because the friend could not READ!  

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