The Yeager Road Diaries: Call me Fred

Last weekend, not so good (but got better). I woke up Saturday morning with the plan to take Michelle and Heather to the Krispie Kreme. I sat down in front of my computer and there was an e-mail from one of my oldest and dearest friends, Burt Moody.

I want to let you know that my dad has passed away sorry to tell you like this! Sat at 11:00 in douglasville we are having the furneral get in touch if you can !!!!

It was 10:00 am. I jumped up and told Michelle that I needed to go the the funeral. I really didn't want to ask her to go. She said 'Give me 5 minutes'... Heather did the same. I called my mom and ny 10:30 we were on the road (after calling a funeral home and finding out which funeral home he was in). We arrived 5 minutes after the funeral started.

Let me take a moment to talk about the deceased: I mentioned Ernest Moody briefly in The Yeager Road Diaries.

Ernest (yes... he and his son comprised Burt and Ernie) and I met when I was 12 years old. He worked late and we only saw him occassionally. When he met me, he called me 'Fred'. After that, it stuck, everyone in his house called me Brian... except Ernest. Every time I'd walk in the door he'd yell "Hey Fred!" with a small smile. I really liked Ernest.

Years later, he started his own grading business and we would see more of him.

As I got older, he and I would have debates, particularly religious and political ones. He would listen, that was something I didn't have with my own father at the time. When we'd finish a given debate, if he agreed with me (which was often), he'd say: "Lucky Guess, Fred." and he'd smile.

One day Ernest sat all of us down (Burt and I and a few friends) and picked up a fireplace poker with a looped handle. He explained that the poker was like life. Everyone starts off in the empiness of the loop, they know nothing. At 21 you start your life on the handle, learning more and more until you reached the straight part of the poker... when you were about 60 years old... and then you knew everything... but were too old to do anything with it.

When I was 18, I went to work for Ernest driving a big dirt mover, called a 'Pan'. I wasn't very good at it, but Ernest used to say: "Fred... you aren't really subte with it, but you sure can pan a lot of dirt." He never knew what that meant to me. In all the years I'd known my Step-Father, he'd never once even described my work as adequate. After talking to Burt one day, I realized that maybe it's a failing in some fathers of that generation... because Ernest couldn't praise Burt either... only those of us that weren't his son.

The last time I saw Ernest was 10 years ago at the funeral of his wife... I walked into the same funeral home (the same one that we would see him in last saturday) and he said: "Thank you for coming, Brian." I began to cry and said: "Who's Brian? My name is Fred."

That was the last time he called me Fred. He got re-married and from the eulogy, a lot of things in his life changed (apparently for the better). We buried him in the rain last saturday next to his wife Tommie-Lou, almost 10 years after she passed away.

I tend to be nostalgic as a general rule... And in reflection, I wish he were here to call me Fred, one last time.