By Jeff Guy
I know the two old guys in the photo pictured above look like the two judges from The Muppet Show, but actually, it's my uncle Don, (left) and Dad, (right). When I posted this picture on Instagram, my friend, Coco, said, "They look like movie stars." Appropriately enough. They were dressed in their Sunday best for the funeral of my stepmom, Marcia. She died earlier this year, on Valentine's Day, of COVID. The memorial service was held at Felton Valley Farms just outside of Rustwater, Kan. (pop. 1,000) There's a lot to say about Marcia, but I'm saving that for another column. For today, I'll just tell you about Uncle Don.
Last Christmas for the first time in my life I sent a Christmas card in the mail to Dad and Marcia and one to Uncle Don. A widower living by himself in Kennesaw, Georgia, I figured my uncle might be lonely so I sent him a card from his home country in Kansas.
At 9:51 Tuesday night, I saw on my iPhone that Dad had tried to call a minute earlier. I knew immediately what it was about. I called Dad back.
"Don passed away," he said. His one sibling. Dad sounded sad.
It wasn't unexpected. Uncle Don entered the hospital a few weeks earlier, with symptoms of COVID. He'd had the Pfizer shots, but he'd caught the new Delta strain.
At 4:15 p.m., the following day, I called Dad while sitting in my Kia in the parking lot of Groover Labs off St. Francis Street in Wichita. At 6:30 p.m., my Toastmaster's Group would be meeting in the building. I was scheduled to give a speech that night and typically, I was unprepared and scrambling to get everything ready at the last minute.
"I'd like to talk about Uncle Don in my speech," I said to Dad. "You have any good stories?"
"I don't have any stories," he said. "You know that's not how my mind works."
I paused momentarily, knowing Dad would start spilling if I gave him a minute.
"We'd grab a hoe," he said. "I took five rows. He'd take five rows and we took turns."
'The devil won't take me'
Donald Hubert Guy (I know that's an old man's name, Hubert) was born September 3, 1934 in Lathrop, Kan. (pop. 139 these days) to Richard and Fern Guy. Like his brother, Gerald, would be three years later, Don was born at his maternal grandmother’s house. Something about it being easy access for the country doc.
“We lived on a farm about 3 ½ miles north of Lathrop until about ‘53,” Dad said. The brothers attended a one-room grammar schoolhouse in Lathrop. They went to high school in the big city -- in the metropolis of Marshallville, Kan. (pop. 700).
The school bus was only allowed to meet the boys on the west side of the Lathrop/Marshallville border and their parents usually dropped them off at the bus stop, but not always. Sometimes, Richard and Fern were too busy working on the farm and Gerald and Don had to walk to meet the bus. When the bus would drop them back off at the end of the school day, they usually walked home.
“Most of the time, our folks farmed the crops,” Dad said. “So we really walked 2 ½ miles to school and back.”
Don’s high school sweetheart was a girl named Devona Carter. After their graduation, the two attended Beulah City Junior College (now Grossmont Community College) in the Big Town of Beulah, Kan. (pop. around 5 or 6,000 in the ‘50s). They soon got married and went on to have five kids.
“He got a job at Boeing (in Wichita),” Dad said. “They sent him to trade school. They learned him the tool and die trade. They paid him to go to school four hours and work four hours a day. He became a tool and die specialist.”
Around 10 or 15 years after starting at Boeing, Don took a job at Lockheed in Oklahoma City. While there, his wife, Devona, went back to school and became a registered nurse. From there, the family moved to Kennesaw, Georgia, a town about 40 miles north of Atlanta.
“He worked ‘til he was 77 years-old. He liked working,” Dad said. “He wanted to continue working. He only quit ‘cuz he could no longer stand on his feet and move stuff around all day.”
“What was that story about him not having a door on his truck?” I asked Dad.
“He had this old International truck,” Dad said. “He didn’t carry any insurance. He didn’t want to spend the money.”
“I guess you weren’t required to have it back then?” I said.
“Legally, you were supposed to have it.”
A fellow hit his front door and Uncle Don talked him into settling for a cash settlement. He then took the door off, never replaced it and pocketed the cash. A few months later, another guy hit the passenger door and Uncle Don talked him into paying cash for it as well. So he drove around in a doorless truck, which would no doubt be as illegal as hell now and for good reason. Of course I remember riding in the back of my dad’s pickup, something I’d never let my kids do in a million years. But, different times, you know.
“Your uncle Don used to drive that truck in the rain and everything,” I remember my mom telling me.
“One time in Oklahoma City, he and Devona got in a fight and she threw an iron at him,” Dad told me over the phone. “It knocked a hole in the sheet rock and it was a year before they got it fixed. “I heard it was five years,” I said.
“Well, whatever it was, it was a long time.”
In one of my earliest memories of Uncle Don, he and Aunt Devona came to Kansas to visit my grandparents. I was 8-years-old and at some point, I’d mentioned my middle name is Allan. “Abner,” Don called me. That made me mad. So, of course, he kept calling me that. Maybe when he was a kid, he read the comic strip, “Lil’ Abner” in the newspaper.
Uncle Don taught himself to play the guitar. He also played the Jews Harp, a little metal instrument one plays with the mouth. I guess his son, David, inherited his musical talent. He’s played in rock, jazz and country bands since he was in 6th grade. That would go back to the ‘60s, but it goes way back.
“We had a famous musician in our family,” Uncle Don would remind us when he’d visit.
Then he’d tell us about his uncle Harley Guy -- one of Rich’s brothers. A guitar player, Harley played in bands at a lot of barn dances, which inspired him to write a song called, “The Hen Waller Shuffle.” Got the sheet music published and copyrighted.
A good life story
Uncle Don’s oldest son, Danny, drove him to Kansas for the funeral. The old man had purchased a new suit. At Felton Valley Farms, I mentioned the Christmas card I’d sent to him, almost on a whim.
“I figured, ‘I’m never gonna see that old man again,’” I joked to Uncle Don.
“The devil won’t take me,” he said.
People in golf carts volunteered to take the old folks and disabled down into the valley for Marcia's funeral. I thought sure, Uncle Don would take them up on it, but the old man said he'd walk. Without a cane or walker, he walked down the trail with Dad. Appeared to do it with ease.
“Uncle Don was a real character,” I said to Dad.
“Yeah, he did all right. He had a good life.”
“I think you’ve done pretty well with your life too.”
“I’m happy with it.”
Your life isn’t finished yet. You get to write your own story. Make it a good one.
And let’s hope wherever Uncle Don is today in the cosmos, he’s making them laugh.
"Hillbilly Heaven" -- Tex Ritter
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