Spring is arriving here in Kentucky. The daffodils have come, gone and now are withering and tilting toward the ground. Dogwoods are beginning to bloom; redbuds are dotting the landscape, and the elephant ears are poking out of the earth. A few have begun to reach skyward.

My oaks in the front yard are leafing and the river birch out back is coating the patio furniture with enough pollen that I can write my stories on the armrests. It won’t be long before the lilac’s fragrance replace that peculiar odor the Bradford pears give off.

Spring is like the young girls we used see on our first day back to school after a summer break. They are the same ones that we saw when school let out months earlier, but they changed over the course of a few months’ time. There something wonderfully new and different about them. A newness. A freshness. So it is with spring. Each year we see it differently than before.

Sadly, spring like youth is fleeting. We don’t realize it as we live in the present. We assume we will always be young. We will always live in the springtime of our lives. But we don’t. Day by day we step away from the spring and youth until one day we look back and wonder where they went.

When I was a kid elderly folks used to say when the sap starts rising old friends start dying. As I put more and more years behind me, I have discovered that it is true.

I learned this week that an old friend passed away. We rode the school bus together. He had a brother that was my age. But the one I am thinking about today was a couple years older than me. He was quiet. I would say that he was contemplative.

His father was a mechanic and worked on all sorts of vehicles. It was evident by the number of them parked beside their house. I suppose it was only natural that his boys would eventually pick up wrenches, too. I remember they were always talking about some car they were working on. And if my memory serves me right, the fellow that passed away this week was a Mopar fan back in the day.

Eventually, we finished school. While I was out searching for what I wanted to be when I grew up, he continued to work on cars and trucks. For a while they had a shop on the north side of town and seemed to do it all - body work, repairs, and restoration. I once stopped by and found him cutting a couple of cars in two. The front half of one was wrecked, but the back half was good. The other had a perfect front end, but the back had rear-end damage. He split them in half and reattached the two good halves together. After he had finished, the car looked perfect! No one could tell it had once been two cars.

Unfortunately, my first car was a Pinto. Something was always wrong with it. But Ray had a way of keeping it going. He changed out a couple starters for me. When my A-frame was damaged, he repaired it. When my head gasket blew, he fixed that, too. When someone rammed me in the side, he put my car back together again.

It seemed that every time I saw him, he had grease under his fingernails. But he always had a smile on his face. He was a patient soul. Never seemed to get in a hurry. He’d look at my Pinto, shake his head, and say, “Leave it here for a while and I’ll getter' going again.” He always did.

Some nights I’d be out and pass by his shop only to see him hunched over someone’s car working away, up to his elbows in grease or oil.

I haven’t seen him in the forty years since I moved away. But I never forgot what he did for me back then. I seriously doubt that he charged me what his time was worth. He knew I was just trying to keep my head above water, like so many of his customers and friends.

He was like a lot of folks I knew when I grew up in Winston County. Quiet, good folks, that always did what they could for you. – Like those character actors in a movie. They never played the leading role, but the movie wouldn’t have been a success without them. They are the people that made growing up in Louisville special. My life seems a little better for having known Ray and others like him.

Someone posted a picture of him yesterday. There was a beautiful young lady by his side. A daughter? A granddaughter? At my age it’s hard to determine a lady’s age like I once did.

There was Ray standing beside her. A little older looking, but still the Ray I knew from years past. Hair a little grayer and thinner. Large glasses. A hint of a smile and a glint in his eyes. He was wearing a shirt with his name patch on it. Suspenders covered most of the lettering, but it was still the old Ray I knew.

It saddened me to hear that he had passed away. I feel like another part of my youth vanished just like one of these spring days I’m experiencing. Today it is here. Tomorrow it is a fond memory.

To his family and friends, I send my thoughts and prayers. I know the near future will be difficult to fathom without him.

But for those of us that believe, we know spring will come once again for us. Perhaps springtime and youth will not be fleeting there. We’ll see.

And if there are cars that need repairing in heaven, perhaps the grease will be easier to come clean. Chevys, Fords, and Mopars? He created us in his image, so there may be cars in heaven. If there are, I expect to see Ray driving a big block down the street when I arrive.

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Rick Algood
April 13, 2019