On December 27, 2000, I received a telephone call from Kay Wiley who told me that her husband, Jim, had died that evening in the hospital at Opelika, Alabama.
     Jim and I became friends in 1949 when we were students in K.D. McKellar Elementary School at Milan, Tennessee.  Our friendship continued to grow throughout the years which followed, and, unlike many who promise to keep in touch following graduation from high school but who lose touch with each other, Jim and I kept in touch across the years until he died.  We never permitted geography or circumstances to prevent us from keeping in touch with each other.
     Both of us were in the school band, and we loved music.  It was not uncommon for us to go to one of our homes after school to listen to music albums.  Although Jim began playing the clarinet in band, at some point he switched to drums, and the rest is history because he played with a number of prominent musicians and groups.
     As cancer began to take its toll on him our telephone conversations became opportunities for us to look back at the memories we shared, the people we had known, the many things which we remembered from our days of growing up, and the people who had been important in our lives.  We also discussed how much we loved our spouses and children.  And Jim’s love for his grandchildren was unmistakable.
     One constant about Jim was his sense of humor.  I cannot count the times when I needed a good laugh, and I would telephone him.  I didn’t have to beg him to tell me a joke.  He always had something funny “on the tip of his tongue.”  He would call me “out of the blue” and tell me that he had a funny story which he wanted to share with me.  He had the God-given ability of telling anything in such a way as to make it humorous.  I cannot count the times when he would have me laughing to the point of tears just over the way he told a particular story.
     Toward the end, when Jim knew that his earthly life was drawing to a close, he trusted me enough to share with me his deep faith in our Creator.  Kay shared with me a prayer which Jim appreciated and read often.  It goes: “I believe that I am always divinely guided.  I believe that I will always take the right turn of the road.  I believe God will always make a way where there is no way.”  Jim had received a copy of this prayer from his friend, John Gore.
     Kay asked me if I would speak at Jim’s funeral service which was conducted at Bodkin Funeral Home in Milan, Tennessee, on Sunday, December 31.  It was one of the greatest honors of my life.  Following the funeral, Jim was laid to rest in the Oakwood Cemetery in Milan.
     So long, my dear friend.  Thanks for all the wonderful memories.