Shamblin’ Man

You may have noticed him when you passed through our small community; a tall, slight, shambling figure of a man walking on the side of the road.  Perhaps you gave him only a glance; perhaps you didn’t really see him at all.  He wasn’t much to look at.

His clothes were usually well worn and slightly shabby, his glasses nearly always sat at the end of his nose, and sometimes his chin bore testimony to his last meal.  He wore his cap pulled down over his forehead to shield eyes weakened by many years of bright sunshine and age.

He never officially ran for office, he never achieved much in life – according to most people, that is.  No, he just quietly walked up and down Route 58 picking up after other people who threw their garbage out of the windows of their cars. 

He used his own money, and sold the aluminum cans he picked up to buy food to feed the stray and feral cats in our community. These feral cats will certainly miss their gentle friend. He always worried about them making it through the cold winters.

He spent his days quietly in the back of the local Food Market, reading the Roanoke Times and underlining articles and words of particular interest to him.  To those of us who took the time to sit with him and talk, he was a walking encyclopedia of mountain genealogy.  He could tell you who was related to whom, who had married whom, and who was kin to whom.  He remembered birthdays, anniversaries and dates of death, and could discuss current events with an acuity few could match. 

He delighted in learning new facts and new words; whenever, in the course of one of our many conversations I would use a word unfamiliar to him, he would stop me and ask me what the word meant and how it was used.  He would make a note to himself, look up the word, and proudly mention it to me the next time he saw me.  He sometimes misused words, and we would quietly laugh together. 

I remember well one day at the Market.  He had previously had laser eye surgery for cataracts, and he was worried that they were returning.  He said to me, “I’m afraid I may be gettin’ another Cadillac in my eye.”  I replied, “Well Tommy, I sure hope not, ‘cause that would hurt like the very Dickens!”  He immediately caught what he had said, and we stood there before the counter and quietly enjoyed a good laugh together.

He was never proud and vain; he just went about his life, a simple, good man.  He never married because, as he explained to me, he had to take care of his parents after he got out of the military, and then he ‘never could find nobody by then’. 

He graduated from High School in 1938, and served honorably in the United States Navy during World War II.  He was a member of the local VFW Post, and turned up faithfully for meetings, trusting that one of his friends would see that he got home safely.  He was a familiar figure at any ‘doings’, he loved to hear music, but what he loved most of all was just to talk, to chat with anyone who came across his way.

He lived his last years with some very dear friends, who remodeled their basement to make him a comfortable apartment.  There, thanks to their caring hearts and kindness, he was able to maintain his independence.  Nearly every day, he would walk up Route 58 to the Market, where he would do odd jobs, pick up aluminum cans for recycling, and pass the time of day with anyone who came in and wasn’t in too big of a hurry to share a few words with him.

His self-depreciating humor was legend to those of us who took the time to know him. Years ago when he drove a vehicle, a 1951 Chevrolet pickup, he stopped to give a ride to my teenage husband-to-be and two of his cousins.  Packed into the front of the truck like sardines, the truck crept down the road towards Jack Archer’s store.  He told them, “You boys ‘ll just have to bear with me – sometimes I get a wild hair and just have to drive fast!” Glancing over at the speedometer, the boys saw that he was driving 25 miles an hour!

I first met Tommy in 1973, when I moved to the Blue Ridge.  That same year, I introduced him to my older sister, who lives in another city.  We stood and chatted for a few minutes, and then left.  In 1978, I moved to Wisconsin, stayed there for 14 years, and then moved back home to the Blue Ridge.  Tommy was one of the first locals I saw upon my return.  You can only imagine my amazement when he greeted me by name, and then asked me, “How’s your sister?  Marie, wasn’t that her name?”   His memory was astounding!

As the unofficial mayor of our small community, he was our good will ambassador, greeting tourists, inquiring where they were from, and giving them a wonderful impression of mountain friendliness.  I wonder how many picture albums in the world have his picture in them – hundreds, I am sure.  Yet how many people really knew him?

Tommy was a member of the greatest generation this world has ever seen.  He belonged to an era when you took personal responsibility for your words and actions.  His was the generation when a handshake sealed an unbreakable agreement, when your word was your bond, and you stood by what you believed.  He loved God, country and community and the natural world.  He quietly grieved when the beauty of the mountains was bulldozed flat by progress, but he turned his thought and deeds to preserving the little that was left.

Tommy and I both shared a common belief – when Jesus our Lord said “When ye do this unto the least of them, ye do it unto me’ – Tommy and I both believed He wasn’t just talking about people.  We shared a love of all animals, and he was devoted to taking care of the stray cats around our tiny hamlet. 

On November 25, he was walking across Route 58, either coming or going from feeding his cats.  This being Thanksgiving Day, he was making sure his ‘kitty cats’ had a good meal.  He was struck by an automobile and died at the local hospital the same day.

The shock waves generated by his death throughout our community are incomprehensible to outsiders.  Our hearts and prayers are not only with our friend, but also with the unfortunate teenager who struck him.  Tommy would have been the first one to ‘take up’ for them, and not associate them with blame in any way.  This was just the way he was.

Something good, and gentle and kind has left us.  To strangers and to most people, he was just a quiet, shambling figure of a man walking up and down the road.  To his friends and intimates, he was a fountain of information, cheerful good will, and a kind-hearted friend to all the stray cats in our area.

Who will pick up our roadsides now?  Who will feed his beloved cats?  Who will ever take his place?  No one can fill his shoes.  Tommy Cockram was a rare man, and our community and our lives are much the emptier for his absence.
 

THOMAS JEFFERSON COCKRAM 1918 – 2004