Some in blue jeans and sweatshirts, others in pressed khakis and bright Christmas sweaters, the men celebrated each other for a few hours as they drank in the spirit of the season and glowed in the anticipation of the happy days and new year ahead.
Big T was there, quieter than normal, but still waiting with a quick grin and a verbal tug back to Earth for anyone who showed too much of a fondness for spreading their own wisdom. Sit back and listen was Big T’s motto, and you’ll find out how much somebody doesn’t know.
With the rest of us, Big T ate, laughed, told lies, slapped backs and shook hands — we are not a modern, man-hug crowd. Recollections of some exploits, the kinds of stories good friends tell that they know by heart but still remember how funny it was the first time, drew eye-watering laughter. Over the years, exaggerations became fact and the art was in the telling. Big T was an artist.
Morning sprinted toward noon and last-second shopping and other family obligations on such a busy day started calling. Big T had never been a lingerer. There was always something else to do, someone else to see. But on this day, he made a point to hang around and extend good wishes to everybody. Had we known, like he did, that it was his last Christmas, none of us would have left.
Tony Sherrill died last Saturday. He was 65. If you saw his obituary, you’d know he was a father, grandfather and great grandfather to a family he loved. He lived in the community he was born in, was a millworker for most of his life and was as devoted to hunting and fishing as anyone you’d ever meet. What you wouldn’t know if you never had the honor to meet Big T is that, basically, he simply loved people.
He could sit and swap stories for hours, or elbow in around a campfire and soak in the silence. If just once, you did something incredibly stupid, you could count on Big T to always remind you. And if you ever, just once, needed anything and Big T could provide it, it just showed up on your porch. From Hatteras to the highlands, folks who met Big T on fishing trips and hunting adventures knew they had gained a lifelong friend. He even volunteered as the designated chef on group golf outings so he wouldn’t miss out on the laughter.
He was hard-boiled on the edges, but soft-centered. At the funeral, we heard about a grandfather absolutely adored by the grandson he taught to hunt, and about the times tough and gruff Big T let his great granddaughter apply make-up to his face and paint his fingernails.
One of Big T’s biggest passions was practical jokes. So when word spread on the morning of his funeral that one of his last requests had been for friends to dress in jeans, we figured his actual request had been to just tell a few of us so we’d awkwardly stand out at the service.
As it turned out, no one could feel out of place at Big T’s memorial. The women cried, which would have made him happy. And the grown men — bankers and businessmen, millworkers and truck drivers, some in their Sunday best and others looking like we came straight from the garden — fought back the tears because we could sense, deep down, Big T would never let us forget we cried.
He still got the last laugh, though. As we gathered at the cemetery to witness the last step of Big T’s journey, several friends smiled and spoke aloud of the kick he would get seeing a much of overly educated idiots, on a day ideal for duck hunting, simply standing out in the rain.
