Little Paul
| The Musgrove family moved in across the street from my family when
Little Paul and I were five years old. We've been neighbors and friends
for fifty years. As we grew up, Little Paul and I went in different
social directions I guess you could say. Paul would be the first to say
that he made some poor life choices and took some roads that that didn't
lead to very good outcomes. For many years I had little contact with
Paul but as time pasted and we became adults we became reacquainted,
Little Paul still living in the home he grew up in and I next door to
the home I grew up in.
A number of us here in the neighborhood helped Paul as much as we could but he was pretty content with his circumstances and lifestyle which didn't include a lot of manual labor. Even though both his parents had passed away some years ago and he had little contact with other members of his family, Little Paul lived right on in his home place. He had no electricity or water service in his home, yet he lived right on. He heated his humble abode in the winter with little kerosene and propane heaters. In the summer when it was too hot to sleep in the house, he slept on a cot in the yard. He cooked all his meals on a propane grill on the front porch and he lived right on. I guess one thing that could be said for Little Paul is that he was a survivor, at least till Tuesday. Tuesday night, probably around 11:00, Little Paul borrowed an extension ladder from the yard of one of the neighbors. He leaned the ladder on to a high limb of a tree in his back yard and climbed the ladder. He tied one end of a rope around the limb and the other end around his neck and stepped off the ladder. I don't know why. In the big picture of life, Little Paul probably didn't contribute a lot to society nor did he make any big impacts on the world but he was generally a good guy, a friend and a good neighbor. I will miss Little Paul. Rest in peace my friend, rest in peace |
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7/24/14