The last one to go

A very old friend of mine died a couple of weeks ago.  He was old in both senses of the word: he was 92 ½, and I had known him since the day I was born.  He was one of my father’s three oldest friends – they had known each other since 7th grade.  On the day I was born, Clifford and the other two old friends, Frank & Albert – both of whom died some time ago – brought a big, pale blue stuffed bear to the hospital.  My first gift, which I still have, though it is much flattened – has been restuffed more than once – and a faded gray.

A life-long bachelor, Clifford was a familiar figure throughout my childhood, but especially so once my father and stepmother settled in Ft. Worth, and so did Clifford, in a small house not far from theirs.  This quiet, mild-mannered man would often visit, occasionally staying for dinner, not infrequently joining us on family jaunts.  I remember being impressed by the snappy little MG he drove for a while, and amazed when I was visiting him once, and he proceeded to cook us a large steak in a big metal bowl.  As a bachelor, he could obviously do things in unconventional ways.

Clifford served as an Army photographer during World War II.  In the last few years I was privileged to see some of the photos he took in that capacity.  There were a number of bombed-out towns, the inhabitants standing and staring as the Americans rolled into town in their trucks and jeeps.  He told me that one photo, of a medic working over a fallen soldier in the field, was purely staged.  “The guy was already dead,” he said; “but they wanted me to take the picture for a story about the medics.” Like much of the photography done during the war, most of the pictures Clifford took were intended to bolster morale within the army (many of his pictures appeared in Stars and Stripes), and increase support for the war on the home front.

Though he worked as a surveyor for oil companies for much of his adult life – until he took early retirement, convinced he could make more money wisely managing his investments than working at a job -- Clifford never stopped taking pictures, until a couple of years ago, when his sight began failing him.  He also painted, and wrote a number of quite excellent short stories.  He was, in short, a very creative man, something I never realized until we became closer over the past ten years.  He was a perfect example of how little we may know someone we think we know very well.  And he was one of the few people in my life who was actively supportive of my writing.

Clifford and I had very different opinions on almost every subject.  Perhaps inevitably, given his generation, and where he grew up and lived virtually all his life (i.e., Texas), Clifford was extremely politically conservative, whereas I am your basic liberal.  Besides politics we argued about the Civil War (which Clifford insisted on referring to as the War of Northern Aggression), race, evolution, even music (we agreed about Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby, disagreed about the Beatles and Al Jolson).  But the nice thing was, we could have these vigorous disagreements, and still remain fond of one another.  It was refreshing to me to find a member of my parents’ generation who was willing to discuss all these different matters, and I think Clifford enjoyed having somebody to talk to!

And now that he is gone, my family has lost the last member of our own Greatest Generation.  Clifford Owen Bell, I and my brothers and sisters, who saw you as all-but-family, honor and salute you.  And we will miss you.