He stood six feet, six inches tall, and children said he blocked the sun. A man like that could have loomed, but he never needed to. His size was softened by a laugh that carried across porches, by hands that always seemed to be giving—lifting a bag, steadying a rail, patting a back. He was called a gentle giant, and for once the cliché fit.
For more than fifty years he was married to the same woman, their life a long steady partnership stitched together by meals, prayers, and inside jokes that only they understood. He had a son and a daughter, both inheritors of his good humor, though neither reached his height. At the table he always passed dishes before serving himself. He loved to eat—every kind of food, from ribs slow on the grill to peach cobbler still steaming. Eating wasn’t excess; it was joy. He treated food as fellowship, a rustic communion that brought people close.
He loved sports as much as supper. Not one game, but all of them. Baseball, basketball, football—his eyes lit up at every season. Yet his true reverence belonged to the heroes of the past: Jackie Robinson breaking barriers with a stolen base, Wilt Chamberlain bending physics, Bill Russell commanding both court and respect. He spoke their names with awe, as if they were prophets as much as players. When the news came, one by one, that they were gone, a shadow touched his spirit. He would shake his head and murmur, “They don’t make them like that anymore.” It was grief as much as admiration, a recognition that the titans of his youth had stepped off the field forever.
Still, he kept cheering. Sports gave him a language for life: teamwork, persistence, second chances. He coached kids at the park, teaching them to pass the ball as naturally as passing bread at the table. He believed in showing up, in sweating for the team, in laughing even after a loss. “Work hard. Be kind. Share the ball,” he told them. Simple sentences, but they stuck.
In the neighborhood he became a quiet anchor. He fixed porches for widows, drove neighbors to appointments, pressed folded bills into palms without announcing it. His presence was large, but his ego wasn’t. He wore work shirts, not polished suits. He had one jacket for weddings and funerals, and when he wore it he looked less like wealth and more like meaning. People trusted him because he asked for nothing in return. He was agrestic in manner—plain, unpolished, without ceremony. But his dignity was undeniable.
Time did its trimming. His stride shortened. His back stiffened. He measured days not by quarters and innings but by pill bottles and appointments. Yet his passion for games remained. He would sit in his chair, watching grainy footage of Robinson or Russell, whispering their names as if they were old friends. Sometimes he laughed; sometimes his eyes grew wet. Memory, for him, was its own league where the greats never retired.
When his final days came, he did not flinch. He called his children near, asking real questions—how are you, what do you need. He told his wife the house still held the sound of their first laughter. He made one last grocery run for a neighbor too proud to ask for help, leaving the receipt with a note that said “paid in full.” Even as his steps slowed, his giving did not.
The funeral was crowded. Not by numbers alone, but by stories. The pastor spoke warmly, though he had his details wrong; the community filled in the truth. A boy he once coached said the giant taught him not just to set a pick but to keep a promise. A woman recalled the night he drove her across town so she could keep her job. A neighbor pointed to the porch rail he had repaired and said it had never creaked since. His children spoke last, describing him not as flawless but as faithful. “He was good,” they said. “He was stubborn. He loved too much food. He loved us more.”
There was laughter, there were tears, and in both was dignity. Not the polished kind, but the agrestic kind—dignity born of rough edges, hearty meals, honest work, steady presence.
Afterward, the neighborhood carried him on in small acts. Someone repainted his porch. Someone planted tomatoes by his steps. Children played ball at the park, shouting names they only half knew—Russell, Wilt, Jackie—as if calling those legends back to life. And on certain evenings, a laugh rose across the block, deep and rolling, and for a moment you could almost believe he was still there.
Agrestic dignity. The phrase fit him like a well-worn coat. He was not refined by the world’s standards. He was refined by his own: eat well, laugh loud, help often. He lived large but simple, rough but radiant. He touched the sky without ever leaving the ground.
And when the ground received him back, the sky remembered.
RMS INSIGHTS ✍🏾 