By now you
have, no doubt, realized that Carmon was a man who lived his life on his own
terms. He kept the same haircut he’d
worn since high school. He wore Levis
nearly everywhere. He had at least six
dark yellow tee shirts with the same logo because he had gotten them free at a
convention. He wore them until they
almost fell off his back with age. His
idea of dressing up was to wear a western shirt instead of a tee shirt and
colored Wranglers instead of Levis. He
wore boots winter, spring, summer, and fall.
He was rarely without that brown hat. *
Whenever he changed clothes, the first thing he transferred from pocket
to pocket was his pocketknife. He didn’t
think he’d eaten a meal unless there was meat and lots of it. He was a man of few words, but when he
talked, people tended to listen. He had
a presence about him reminiscent of a slightly aging James Dean, had James Dean
lived long enough to be slightly
aging.
 |
| James Dean |
But there
was more to him than what was visible on the surface. For all his gruff exterior, inside was a very
complex and surprisingly tender and compassionate person.
Over our
years together, we rarely had just our six-person family living in our
home. Carmon tended to take in folks in
need as readily as he took in critters.
We had extended family, foster children, exchange students, and our
children’s friends as a part of our household on a regular basis. We used to chuckle about one young friend in
particular who would come spend the night on Memorial Day and go home on Labor
Day. Although he was Breed’s friend,
part of the charm of being at our house was Carmon. The neighbor kids loved him. Carmon knew how to make fun!
Ours was
the house on the block with the fort in the backyard. * Carmon was known on occasion to haul our boys
and half of the neighborhood to a wrestling match. When the conservation district drained the
canals each fall, Carmon would come home from work early, don his cutoffs and his
Converse high top tennis shoes and lead a gaggle of neighborhood kids
(including ours) down the empty canals to catch crawdads. The fact that the fun was spontaneous and
unexpected was, I suspect, part of its appeal.
When it came to fun, he thought like a kid. He was definately 42 going on 12.
© Gebara Education, 2001. No portion of this book may
be copied by any method without the express written permission of the author
* These are not our kids, either, but aren't they cute?!
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