Words we seldom use
A never-before published story by the author
I have never used the words in my vocabulary to write an obituary or an epilogue, but here I am at age 97, wondering if it would be appropriate and ethical to write my own eulogy.
Webster defines the word "eulogy" as being an oration or written praise of accomplishments, but he didn't say who could be the writer, so I went to Mr. Google, and he said there was no reason why I should not write my own eulogy.
I will begin this eulogy with November 27, 1914, when I was born in a little 4-room house on the banks of Cato Slough in south Bollinger County, MO. I went through grade school at Stepp School and didn't plan on going to high school, because the nearest one was at Zalma, MO 5 ½ miles away, and there was no transportation at this time. So, I went out and got myself a job wheeling sawdust at the local sawmill for a dollar a day. I hadn't learned a lot in grade school, but I could soon see that I was never going to get very rich wheeling sawdust, so I decided to walk the 5 ½ miles.
After graduating Zalma High School in 1933, I took a job selling Watkins Products house to house in Stoddard County. I had known several Watkins dealers but never knew any that were very rich. Most were the fellows who sat on a bench in the city park most of the day, when they were supposed to be working.
I had worked at this job for about a year, when the company called me to come in for an interview. There I discovered that I was the top-ranking dealer out of 1,573 dealers. I was given a job as district manager for the state of Mississippi, where I worked until gas rationing during WWII made it impossible for many of our dealers to travel their routes.
At this time, I moved my family back to my home town of Advance, MO. I went into Mr. Mayfield's store, which was one of the better locations in town, and there he was, sitting in his favorite chair near his pot-bellied heating stove. He wanted to sell out and get out of this place.
I paid him his asking price, immediately locked the doors, and went to work inside, installing new fixtures. Ours was the first store in Advance to have air-conditioning and gas heat. I really didn't know what to expect in the volume of customers, and our work force was completely overwhelmed by the number of customers coming into Corbin's Variety on opening day, April 21, 1945.
In 1954, I purchased a franchise, making Corbin's Variety into a Ben Franklin store, which was often referred to as the "Walmart" of Advance. I operated this store for 30 years, and also prepared the income taxes for about 300 clients.
Most of these clients were farmers, and when they learned that I would accept Indian artifacts as a fee, I was usually the first to know when a discovery was made. I was given free range of their farms. This helped me put together one of the larger collection of artifacts in the entire country. A collection valued at $25,361 has been donated to the Missouri Department of Conservation and is on display at their nature center near Cape Girardeau.
I retired in 1975 at age 62 and spent the next 20 years traveling throughout the United States. I joined a national organization known as "Passport in Time," and with this organization, I had the pleasure of working with many noted archaeologists in most of the National Forest west of the Mississippi. The Missouri Archaeological Society published an article pertaining to my archaeological experience.
In planning these archaeological excursions, I traveled in a fully-equipped slide-in camper on a sturdy pickup truck and would spend two weeks following such historic trails as the Oregon, the Sante Fe, the Pony Express, and the Lewis and Clark. Exactly 118 years to the day, after General George Armstrong Custer made his Last Stand at the Little Bighorn, I was part of a nineteen-man crew, making an archaeological survey of this trail.
In 1999, at age 85, I bought my first computer, and since that time, I have published two books--"Reflections from Missouri Mud" and "Fragments of My Fickle Mind." I have written over 200 articles for publication in magazines and newspapers.
Now that the numbers on my calendar continue to propel me through the framework of time, the deeds of my daily life will paint a portrait of my existence without the benefit of an eraser.
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