Still Alive

The other day in the Atlanta Journal and Constitution’s obituaries I read that an ex-coworker Robert England, age 67, had died.

Robert and I worked in the same office in the Atlanta Postal Source Data Center and Time Keeping for about 15 years. We didn’t work together. I mostly worked at night and he always worked in the day time. But we shared pleasantries and gossip anyway.

And we were two of the only four white boys in the office.

Robert and I were distantly related. He was born in Union County, Georgia. Some of the children of my ancestor John Hunter and some of the children of Richard England married each other, and their children inter-married, and after years of that kind of carry-ons you have a Royal line.

Surprisingly, all the inbreeding that occurred did not bring out the worse of the genes but the best of the genes. Most of the Hunters and Englands I met at reunions in Union County college graduates and a good portion of them educators.

Robert was from Union County but lived in expensive Dunwoody, one of the exclusive suburbs near Atlanta. How he could afford that on a postal salary I will never know. And he dressed in yuppie clothes too.

One time in the mid 90s we ran into Robert and his wife at a country store in the very community in Union County that our infested. Robert said he had just retired.

In 2001 I was in that same store when showing Bluto that section of Georgia and a big Li’l Abner type of lug behind the cash register wanted to talk University of Georgia football with me and I realized I was wearing a UGA Bulldog ball cap, so I faked it.

When I read the obituaries and see that friends, co-workers, or relatives die I usually call someone that knew the person that had died and we could share a few moments talking about the deceased.

But, in this case I had a sudden realization. I may the last living one of 35 technicians that is still standing. I left there in about 1981 and transferred to Marietta. Then I was the youngest.

Each person I thought of to call – “nope, he/she is dead too”. There was one person I am not sure about, Catherine C., which I called “CC”. The last time I heard from her she called me to tell me an ex-coworker, Chuck had died. That was about ten years ago. CC was is about 12 years older than I, which now, would translate that she is about 77 years of age.. chances are she is dead too. I hope not.

One interesting thing about CC was she belonged to an aggressive black church and she was an “Usherette” and they all dressed alike, kind of like the a group of harmonizers would dress alike or something. The church had no male ushers. I think the idea was that perky female probably would get people to reach deeper in their wallets during collecting the plate time.

I thought about finding her number on the internet’s White Pages but just haven’t.. I hate to find out she is dead too, if she is. As it is now, she is still alive in my mind.

At one time it was fun being the youngest person of your co-workers, but in the end It is lonely.