Camouflage in Paradise

I’ve been thinking a lot about camouflage and John Prine’s Paradise lately.  Specifically, I’ve been thinking about Tommy’s funeral, as well as his life.  What is it about death and all that it involves that permeates us with feelings and images so strong as to be virtually impossible to remove from our minds?

The decision to bury Tommy in camouflage was a no brainer!  Symbolic of his number one favorite activity in life, duck hunting, there was really no reasonable alternative.  And so his final, geared-up self was decked out in:

Polypropylene long johns (it’s cold down there),

Camo-look shirt with retrievers embedded therein,

Camo jacket, camo waders, camo hat,

Duck call around his neck,

All topped off with a pack of Camels inside his jacket, and

Programs from a number of hunting tests at his feet!

Could have been some camo element I’m forgetting, as well.

I did dissuade our son from including a bottle of Evan Williams in the mix, which of course has nothing to do with hunting, but did define a too-long period of his life, making bad choices while struggling with insomnia.

So there he was in his hunting clothes, lying in a camo-lined, beautifully crafted, made-in-Tennessee, poplar casket.  Poplar, the wood that grows profusely in Middle Tennessee, the wood that we chose for light/dark beams and cabinets in our Estill Springs home. 

And while Tommy lay there, freed from his ailments and addictions, John Prine’s Paradise accompanied images of Tommy alive, as father, husband, hunter, dog trainer, hunt-test/field-trial judge, and son.  Daddy, won’t you take me back to Muhlenburg County? 

Won’t you take me back to a time when Tommy had a choice:  to smoke or not to smoke?  Not to smoke would have been the choice that would have delayed this time to a more “reasonable” end.

Won’t you take me back to any time with choices that could have meant a better life for you, Tommy?

Take me back to a time when Tommy and Cabot attended a hunting test in Muhlenburg County and almost wore out John Prine’s Paradise CD?

Cabot’s eulogy rightly concluded that his dad was a doer, not a watcher, not a leave-well-enough-aloner.  If he wanted something he made it happen; that was for sure.  I always thought much of this attitude came from his having been diagnosed as a “juvenile” diabetic when he was a teenager.  I believe he always felt he would die young and I think he probably felt near the end that he had been on borrowed time for some time.  If only, that part of Tommy that could will things into existence could have willed a desire for a healthier lifestyle.

These images haunt me, sting my eyes, while John Prine’s music goes round and round in my head.  It was once Paradise here in the time before the Fall.  It is now Paradise for Tommy and I pray that for him heaven is filled with dogs, hunting test fields, duck blinds, and ducks that get shot out of the sky, but never die.

Cabot’s eulogy:  http://www.leruetattoo.com/ramblings/tommy-lerue-s-eulogy/

Master National tribute:  https://masternational.wordpress.com/2015/01/29/tommy-fairchild-dies/