“Thankfully retired state park resort manager/ranger. I enjoy doing as little as possible and my partying days are over. Call someone else."
“Interests: reading, classical music, cooking, current events, Russian history, birdwatching, and writing book and film reviews."
“Quotes: “You moved the pot before the coffee stopped brewing.” “Do you smell the mountains or the burro?” And … “How did Shelob's stinger penetrate Frodo's chest when he was wearing mithril?”
– Profile of Patrick Crabtree, The Ospidillo News
During his last days, Pat Crabtree would often call me and ask if I wanted to eat lunch. By then, his body was racked by cancer, and he was dealing with the constant need for oxygen and pain killers. I'd say “sure, love to” and ask Pat what his appetite was telling me to pick up on the way to his home on McDermott Pike.
We both knew our afternoon was going to be a great pleasure – although one that may be periodically interrupted by Pat taking a short snooze or diligently recording his constant regimen of medications in one of many thick notebooks he kept beside him.
Pat's entire base of operations – including bed, tv, and several large tanks of oxygen – was now located in his small front room. He spent most of time there. He didn't drive or venture too far outside any more. His best friend, Dennis Fraley, helped Pat so much – Dennis often drove over to Pat's and spent large segments of time there to assist Pat with anything he needed done.
Pat and I enjoyed eating together, but there was so much more. We talked … and talked. I knew Pat needed some companionship when he called. Dennis had things he had to do. But, this was as much my treat as Pat's. The food was secondary. The fellowship was the primary reason both of us had a great time.
Simply put, we reminisced and related information. We knew we had to do this. Something was vital for both of us to understand about our stories. I don't think either one of us knew why, but we both knew the territory – we were getting older, and, despite my deep regret, my friend knew he was dying and was actively accepting that reality. You may expect times like this to be bittersweet. You are wrong.
As Pat spun tale after tale from his great memory, the day seemed to pass like a minute. He was a master storyteller whose stories featured comprehensive exposition, so when Pat held court, he did so like no other master raconteur I have ever known. He used a Twain-like satire and humorous local color to describe the antics of a cast of Appalachian characters from Southern Ohio.
My Friend, Patrick W. Crabtree
At this point in the blog entry, you must remember having reminisces from the old days occupies much of a geezer's time. Being one of those so-called “old men” at age 70, I often struggle with memory, which by the way, was never a great asset to me. Anyhow, I wish I could spark my brain and ignite technicolor recollections – memories with rich detail and vivid interpretation – like a now-deceased friend of mine named Pat Crabtree.
I loved to visit Pat and strike up conversations about our bygone days. He was a super-intelligent person, well-read, with an incredible storage of evocative memories. Pat was the rare person with the extraordinary abilities to both retain and later retrieve specific information from his past.
Pat and I would sit for hours sharing memories of our past. Both of us graduated from Valley High School and lived near Lucasville, Ohio, so we were intimate with the same environment and characters in the tales. But, Pat, unlike me – the old guy with the failing recall – was a master storyteller who remembered not only the person from '67, but what car he drove, plus the color of the machine, the size of its engine, and any other accessories and details that made a particular story so realistic that I felt as if I was reliving the past.
Even the frequent digressions Pat made led to asides with amazing expository detail. Sometimes the ramblings were even better than the intended direction of the conversations. And, the great thing was that Pat did not deal in bullshit like some old fibbers who would give you that sideways glance periodically to see if you were buying their whoppers. Pat told his anecdotes from true memories with realistic particulars, not fanciful adornment for melodramatic effect.
Since Pat passed away a few years ago, I have learned such total recall is known by neurobiologists as hyperthymesia, or highly superior autobiographical memory (HSAM). HSAM is a condition that leads people to be able to remember an abnormally large number of their life experiences in vivid detail. It is extraordinarily rare, with only about 60 people in the world having been diagnosed with the condition as of 2021.
Pat certainly had hyper recall. He never used it to impress others, but he did not limit the display of his amazing ability to telling stories. He was a dedicated, skilled writer of nonfiction and fiction. Having a faithful imagination, Pat wrote with the same detail he employed to spin an oral memory.
Don't be mislead and think Pat was just some old guy who happened to have great recall – he was a well-read country boy, a park ranger with a fantastic love of nature who later became Manager of Shawnee State Park. He was also a refined writer who employed his eloquence in a simple, yet deep and understanding tone. Some may meet him and too quickly dismiss the man as a walking contradiction. Instead, Pat was the real deal … a straight-shooter who used his own experiences and extensive self-education to navigate the world.
Did I mention Pat also wrote food reviews and even a monster fantasy novel that paralleled the work of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings (complete with maps featuring fictional settings used in the volume)? He worked on this volume for many years, and I am not sure if he ever edited and finished the work before he left this world on July 10, 2018.
Oh yeah. I should relate that Pat's favorite read was War and Peace, the thick literary classic by Leo Tolstoy. He told me that he reread it nearly every year and wrote an article once in his blog discussing which translations were best to read (out of 12 or more he reviewed).
Here is an excerpt from that entry:
“War and Peace in an Abridged Translation by Princess Alexandria Kropotkin -- (ABRIDGED) The Princess Alexandra Kropotkin translation (1949, 742 pages) reads very smoothly but some very key moments of Tolstoy's magic have been egregiously redacted.
“The only application I can think of for this abridgement might be as a gift for a bookish high school student (say ages 14-17) who might become bored with Tolstoy's "Necessity versus Freewill” mantra, (as well as other entries where Tolstoy speaks directly to the reader.) This one is illustrated by J. Franklin Whitman and each transition is set up with a paragraph (by Kropotkin) which provides an historical perspective for the upcoming text. Princess Kropotkin was born in England but her father was a Russian anarchist, the remarkable Prince Peter Kropotkin.”
The Blog And Facebook Page
Pat's Blog was titled The Ospidillo News: “A cyber-hole to discuss current events, culinary interests, film, pets, classical music, art, and history.” The title reference to “'possum” is pure Pat Crabtree – ornery and down-home (often tongue-in-cheek).
Find the blog here: https://ospidillo-blog.blogspot.com/
Pat said: “The study and protection of the extremely rare and endangered Appalachian Mountain Ospidillo is more important than politics, religion, war, the Pope, or anything else that you can name.”
On February 22, 2011, Pat wrote “What You Can Find Here” (on the blog) …
I cook from scratch pretty much every day. So if you want some recipes to die for (or which will eventually kill you, chiefly from fat content), then you've found the right place. I'm also a huge researcher and experimenter so you'll also encounter secret recipes that are genuine, (such as Cincinnati Chili.) Finally, I specialize in outdoor gourmet cooking which might be quite helpful to campers.
2. My political commentaries are pretty radical, roughly based in Anarchy: – "No government is good government." If you share my belief that all politicians, regardless of political affiliation, are rapscallions and scoundrels and they thus deserve no mercy whatever, then you'll probably enjoy my often ranting diatribes.
3. As a retiree, other than cooking and dishwashing [no so good at that latter item], I pretty much only do two things: read and listen to classical music. I've read every English translation of War and Peace. (There are 12 in all and I've read some editions twice.)I've read every classic work of literature [except for Shakespeare -- don't care much for him] that I could get my hands on over the years and, consequently, I seem to be running out of books to read... I think. So I write tons of book and classical music reviews over on Amazon.com.
If you're a student who would rather party than study then feel free to lift and plagiarize those numerous well – written reviews – they're under my real name, Patrick W. Crabtree and accessible from my profile. But be warned that other slackers in your class might be doing the same. Luckily there are still hundreds of symphonies, sonatas, concertos, ballets, and so on which I have yet to hear but most of these are pretty obscure. My point is that I now consider myself a bit of a self-appointed authority on these two topics, especially on the literature end, and I'm willing to field questions.
At this point, I must also relate that Pat was a great rascal – a genuine rapscallion – a mischievous jokester who wore no high-hat. His intelligence shines through descriptions of adventures. He grew up on rural Crowe Hollow on the west side of Scioto County with a colorful crew of neighbors and friends, salt-of-the-earth folks. Pat knew the lay of the land and the cut of the inhabitants. At the time of his death, he was working on a history of the hollow.
Here is a little piece of a writing about Crowe Hollow by Pat Crabtree …
“A worn damask-colored, paisley, overstuffed chair masked the centerpiece of the living room accouterments. I think I have seen one in every home in Crowe and Ghost hollows over the years. Other living room items ran the list from a once-elegant wrought iron lamp with a stained glass lampshade, to a decoupaged couch of the most garish snot hues. (Prior to the days of vocational schools, every local rural school offered wood shop classes. I was amazed how enduring their teen projects were produced exactly the same, from a commonly circulated drawing, year after year by their proud adolescent creators.)
“One such project was an end table-bookstand, very utilitarian and fairly attractive. I have seen tens of these small tables, each reflecting something of the former student's personality, particularly his patience. In many instances this project would reflect the single positive act of its producer in his lifetime. Can you imagine the pride of the parent of the otherwise contumacious student who presented this artifact of actual skill and diligence to his sirelings! These end tables became a permanent aspect of the home furniture for the lifetime of the parents. If they endured the endless forbearance of beer cans and sometimes being used as a deadly weapon in domestic uprisings, perhaps via a voiding of brain function by a well-swung end table. They often ended up in yard sales once the parents were gone.
“Most of the shop class furniture pieces were crafted from pine of spruce as that was what the student could afford. Hardwoods such as maple or cherry cost triple that of softer woods. After a few years, chips began to emerge on the softwood tables if they survived at all. Chipped furniture was just fine with Dogie. After all, when you fitted a house with furniture for the convenience of the renter, chipped or not, it was certainly worth $10.00 a month extra … from Oogie's view.
“Bottle gas ranges were the standard because propane was the only energy source that could be stolen using a pickup truck. The gas tanks could be wrestled into a truck bed by two inebriated, lard-assed men. When the tanks ran empty, it was simply a matter of stopping on a bridge which crossed the nearest river and giving them a burial at sea. This was usually achieved while on the way to lift two more. Propane tanks should be declared the official state artifact by the Mississippi Legislature.
“Sometimes, foolish people attempt to retain their precious propane tanks by means of locking them to the hitch of their lousy house trailer hitch with a chain. However, every self-respecting hillbilly thug will always carry two items of frequent use in his vehicle: a 5-gallon gas can with 8 feet of garden hose, and a huge set of bolt cutters. No lock or chain could withstand the latter.
“Foldout couches manifest a great bonus to the hillbilly renters. Four or more snot-nosed brats can sleep on each one, and given adequate belt instruction, the sucklings can be taught to set it up by themselves. Usually, two such couches are enough to cover the need. An extra rug rat can always be squeezed in. The only incongruity occurs when the patron has his pals over for poker and beer (basically every night), and they occupy the living room until 3 A.M. despite the fact the whining brats have school the next day. The kids sleep where they can find a spot, usually sprawled across one another on the couches yet to be unfolded into beds, taking full advantage of dog pillows.
“When the dogs fart, as they always do on a diet of road kill and table scraps, the game often gets cut shy … maybe calling an end to it a midnight, depending on the stench level. And, I haven't even accounted for the methane produced by the sportsmen themselves … beer, boiled eggs, hot sausages, dill pickles.
“Whooops! Forgot to mention that munching prescription drugs generates a digestive gas that would make Zyclon 3 run away and squeak.
“The bedroooms were reserved for the adults, when possible, at these rental shacks. They were always dark typically featuring one light bulb, hanging unshaded from the ceiling with a string pull switch and no junction box or safety shielding. Globs of black cloth tape dominated these terminals. The beds were always the thin metal army cots only with the extended higher footboards and headboards that brought to mind the bars of a jail. They were light, easy to find and assemble, and cheap.
“The only thing that determined whether a television was present hinged upon the means of reception. There was no cable nor where there satellite dishes in those days. Rabbit ears, even topped with throw-away aluminum pie pan, (an old trick), was ineffective outside of town, so it was up to the landlord to provide an antennae, usually a “Lazy X” model, designed for use with black and white televisions. You could always find a decent one at the Portsmouth city dump down on Argonne Road as the folk switched over to color TVs which demanded that they become slaves to a lifetime of cable bills. I don't know anyone who ever bought a new “Lazy X” antenna. They must last forever.
“In Crowe Hollow, the Lazy X would clearly capture the signals of two TV channels, 3 and 13 … on a good day, usually during a steady drizzle, some luck folks also got channels 10 and 8, Columbus and Charleston, respectively.”
Here's part of an entry in the News about our grade school – Valley Elementary …
“What really got to you were the aromas of the food being prepared down in the basement cafeteria during the morning recess – the vent fans pushed all these delectable smells right out into the swing-set area and when it was time for lunch we were all plenty hungry. The smell of all this food was certainly enough to distract a boy from trying to look up the girls' dresses on the big slide!
“Going down the steps into the cafeteria, it reminded one of a dungeon and the walls where we all put our hands as we anxiously awaited being served on our trays must have harbored a cesspool of nasty bacteria.
“What was the best meal? Footers with sauce! Those footers were incredibly good, or at least they seemed like it back then. We were initially only allowed to get one footer apiece but the school officials later relaxed that rule and the older kids were permitted to buy an extra one for a quarter.
“Some of the kids who could not afford lunch worked in the kitchen for their food [dishwashing and serving] and those guys always got two footers – they certainly earned it. One always remembered to grab an extra quarter from mom on footer day.
“You could buy as many milks [pint cartons] as you wanted for a nickel each. But everybody generally got the same food in those days as there were no choices – you simply ate whatever they spooned on to your plate. I distinctly recall some of the boys who didn't have a lot of food at home bumming any extra food on your tray. Those of us who were lucky enough to have plenty of food at home never thought twice about this practice, and I was always willing to give up my lima beans [Yuk!!!] as well as the inevitable bread with butter slices that they gave us every day …
“Down below in the older students' playground, the only recreational equipment I can remember were the two sets of monkey bars, made from steel pipe and sure to break your arm given the slightest misstep. In fact, I recall actually seeing one girl break her arm there but I can't remember who it was – Joe Bill McKinley's ambulance, which drove down to take her to the hospital, was also a hearse.
“But the big thing was marbles. Marbles were mostly played under the huge old Sugar Maple trees [or they might have been Norway maples] on the smooth and sandy soil. Resultant of years of use, the roots were highly exposed which made for great marble playing – it was very tricky to win. In the end, two percent of the boys won ninety-eight percent of the marbles – again, the winners were always the boys from The Bottoms.
“Bill "Dinky" Dalton was a genuine predator on the marble front. He must have eventually ended up with 55-gallon drums of marbles at home because he certainly got all of mine! Most people have forgotton that the School actually sponsored a Marble-playing Tournament, conducted during school hours.
“At the Annual Awards ceremony near the end of the school year a trophy was actually awarded to the school marble champion. I remember being just a bit put-out when I snagged my trophy for being the school spelling champion in the 4th Grade and the marble championship trophy was twice as big as mine! Well, when I think back on it now, I'm glad it was this way because the guys who won the marble championship probably didn't secure much Kudos for anything else that they ever did.
And, here is a small segment of an Ospidillo News post from November 13, 2016 titled “The Summer of Love – Halcyon Daze” which included this parenthetical instruction to the reader – “Note: a few names have been changed herein, not too many, to protect mostly the guilty.”
“As far as school
went, Larry Eugene was a poster example of a guy who viewed it as
punishment and a great impediment to living free. He was a good
student in that he could read, write, and was good at math. He had
picked this up in spite of the teachers. But Larry didn't give a pile
of guano for history, geography, government, languages... social
sciences in general. He was okay with some science but most guys
weren't plus they weren't as smart as Larry Eugene. He excelled in
mechanical drawing and that's when I thought that he had finally
found his niche. His drawings were always better than mine, always
professional-looking and accurate. Unfortunately, that class came at
a bad time. About halfway through that year, Larry turned
sixteen.
“Three wonderful things happened when you hit
sixteen: you no longer needed a work permit to commence employment;
you were eligible for a driver's license, and; you were allowed to
quit school.
“Everybody whose parents would allow this quit school at sixteen... paroled! Larry fudged it quite a bit because for the preceding month or so he'd been playing truant three days out of five. Yes, he was awarded a string of Fs for all those tests that he missed but he didn't give a shit and why should he? He wasn't going to graduate anyway so failing one class or all classes was as inconsequential as a fart in a cheese factory.
“Sandy Phillips was
the county truant officer and not one of us had ever seen that old
son-of-a-bitch in our lives. We only knew he existed because his name
was listed along with the other school officials on the back of our
report cards. In fact, there were lots of names listed on there that
no one ever saw, a fact which speaks for itself. At the end of the
day, no one was deterred from truancy out of fear of a prospective
appearance by Sandy Phillips.
“Life was better back then,
which is another reason guys quit school. Back then, no car insurance
was required so you could go buy a car that ran well for fifty bucks
and drive wherever you wanted. If it broke down, you could get under
the hood and repair it yourself. Parts were cheap and gasoline was 35
cents a gallon for Hi-test, 100 octane.
“No one was required to participate in silly-assed driver education classes. Hell, by the time we were thirteen we were racing cars at an overgrown oval track over in the Lucasville bottoms and at a similar abandoned raceway near McDermott.
"Pretty much every one
of us had started driving big Farmall and Massey-Harris tractors to
pull the hay and tobacco wagons when we were six or seven. We could
drive rings around the other kids who, at sixteen, were just learning
where the gear positions were on a standard-shift.
“Bobby
Ray Milford's dad, Rory, owned a big junkyard down in Lucasville and
lots of those cars ran just fine, perhaps with a missing fender or
short a muffler or a windshield. We had some epic races down there
and Mr. Milford didn't give a flyin' pig's pecker if you had a
wreck... which we did a couple times. Rory Milford was a damn good
man, totally honest, hard-working and definitely a God-fearing
Pentecostal Apostolic devotee, and he also believed in the
Appalachian rite of passage, the same as my own dad... but he fed us
additional rope and somehow we survived.
“Bobby Ray saw no
limits to his kind father's benevolence and he wanted things that he
could never have because he was a quitter. He quit track, he quit
football, he quit the church, (after about a week of preaching
hell-fire to the rest of us)... he even quit the Air Force.
“It wasn't enough for Bobby Ray just to join the military and possibly make a decent career of it. He always went for the highest standard so nothing less than an Airborne unit would do. This alone likely sealed his doom. Soon after he had come back home once and shown off his red beret and braids he went AWOL from Ft. Hood Texas.
“Appearances were everything to Bobby Ray but it was all superficial. He brought along a pal to dominate, Burl something, also AWOL. The Provost Marshall soon captured them. After serving a term in the brig they went AWOL for a second time and only the Lord knows what they got into for certain but when Bobby Ray appeared in Crowe Hollow at Oogie Delay's house, his eyes were blacked and he was pretty seriously battered all around -- Burl looked equally ragged.
“Bobby Ray's story
was that they had been kidnapped in Piketon, Ohio by drug dealers,
tied up, and beaten before they could slip their bindings and escape.
I think he wanted to try that story out on the rest of us to see if
it might fly with the Provost Marshall because he and Burl were
getting ready to turn themselves in. They had run out of money and
places to alight.
“Of course it was all an outrageous lie. I
laughed at him and he got very angry and stormed out. My best guess
is that they ran their mouths in a bar and a band of Good 'Ol Boys
stomped both their asses. Bobby Ray would have seen this as an
opportunity to render the consequences to lemonade. Burl added not a
word to the story so I knew it wasn't true, along with the fact that
Bobby Ray was always coming up with some melodramatic adventure that
had supposedly happened to him. He was sort of a malicious Don
Quixote.
“The Vietnam War was
pretty hot just then and I thought they might be in serious trouble
this time, desertion during wartime and all that. But Bobby Ray was
soon back among us in civilian attire. I doubt that his DD 214 would
have been designated as 'honorable..'
“Anyway, I said all
that to say this. There were several Bobby Ray Milfords around
Lucasville during the days of the Sugar Shack and sometimes they came
by to drink a beer with us. Some were young while others were older
but their commonality was they were never successful – the sort of
guys who, if they had ever pursued anything worthwhile, they soon
tired of the routine of a mundane working life and so they sought
other alternatives. Even the guys who worked did so mostly
here-and-there, for cash under the table, never paying into Social
Security or, God forbid, income tax.
“One such person was Larry Harding who was a youthful happy-go-lucky friend of mine but I didn't really know much about him. Larry had arrived down here from Columbus with his mother and step-father and he had South Parsons Avenue written all over him. He was extremely handsome, tall and muscular, blonde-haired and blue-eyed, and he dressed like a city thug, open striped shirt, white jeans, chain wallet, and pointy black zipper shoes... and the obligatory heel taps.
“Anyone who wore heel taps around here was trouble – it was the city greaser's hallmark. He owned no car and seemed perfectly delighted to hitch-hike wherever he went. I had never hitch-hiked in my life, but one afternoon Larry showed up at the Sugar Shack and suggested that we go to Lucasville, "...to see what's goin' on." Seein' what was goin' on was a common lifestyle around Lucasville – it still is.
“Since there was no
business and Junebug was giving my new friend The Evil Eye it seemed
a superior idea to hanging around, and as soon as we stuck out our
thumbs we caught a ride. I was pretty enthused that one could get
around like this but Larry clearly took it all for granted. The guy
dropped us off in Lucasville and I suggested that we go to the
drive-in restaurant at the north end of town. I had seventy-five
cents burning in my pocket.
“I can't recall which restaurant
we patronized, there were two. I think at the time they were The
Maple and The Lucas restaurants. In any case, the three quarters
covered two orders of french fries and two small Cokes. We bided our
time and lounged in the booth, as the jukebox blared and while we
stared at the waitress's ass and Larry flirted with her, just as if
we owned the place.
“Larry simply could not get over the fact that I bought his lunch, albeit a very meager one by my estimation. It became obvious to me, in retrospect, that no one had ever given Larry much of anything during his lifetime. After that, he brought it up everywhere we went, slapping me on the back, yielding that big toothy grin as he did so.
“Larry was three or
four years my senior and he treated me so much as an equal that I
really latched on to him. I thought he was a really superb fellow.
Unfortunately not everyone was as amenable toward him as I was. His
mode of dress, his dialect and form of speech, and his body language
were the very sorts of characteristics that gave swift rise to Alpha
male challenges, both from the local guys as well as from those who
were just like him. And there was a great deal more to Larry than I
had come to imagine.
“The euphoric joy of The Summer of Love
terminated abruptly on a Saturday night in mid-August at The Sugar
Shack II, an establishment which was soon to become lost to local
history and folklore. In fact, it was about the worst twenty-four
hours that I ever experienced, emotionally-speaking.”
Pat's companion to the Ospidillo News was the “Appalachian Mountain Ospidillo Society Facebook Page.” Here is a “test” Pat included on the page in 2015 …
“Do you like tests? Most people like tests on Facebook because they make people with just a so-so brain believe that they are a genius.
“Well MY test for you – it’s a test of hillbilly words so if you get them all correct, you might not want to broadcast it to all your friends. I have done the best I can with spelling – I mean, most of these alleged words HAVE no correct spelling. So, when in doubt, just sound it out phonically and that’s probably what it sounds like.
“I will publish the answers [most of which are one-word definitions, or the correct spelling of the word] on my alternative website for which I will provide the link as soon as I have figured out the answers for myself. Some are very easy and some of these words/phrases are genuine head scratchers! ALL are conveyed in the Central Appalachian foothill patois. I have left out all apostrophes and other punctuation that might be a dead giveaway – just go by the pronunciation.
“[Oh, I neglected to mention… a couple of these more comical words come from Hillbillies with curious speech impediments, just to make it more interesting. Yes, I know this is all politically incorrect – I don’t care. Just take the damn test. I have designated the aforementioned offensive words with an asterisk* And some are just corruptions of words that were *wrong to begin with* [!!!] because the originator was a mega-dumbass – those are designated with a plus sign.+]
1. barrie -- borrow
2.
kalotus+ -- clitoris
3. calvary -- cavalry
4. hooved – raised
up
5. bətaters -- potatoes
6. flares -- flowers
7. scantlin
– scantling (a pole used in constructing rough sheds)
8. fit --
fought
9. hit -- it
10. hanna squisher* -- handsome
creature
11. cawls* -- cars
12. iffen -- if
13. ary – a,
one
14. par -- pair
15. theys – there is
16. ortah –
ought to
17. eustud – an arrogant little smart-ass who thinks
he’s a macho stud
18. afixin – preparing [v.]
19. fur --
for
20. fitten – fit, acceptable, suitable, “He ain’t fitten
[fit] fur [for] nothin’ [anything]!”
Conclusions
Jesus, I miss this guy. When Pat passed away at age 64, I was heartbroken that my buddy had lost his battle with cancer at such a young age. Still, I did not grieve his passing with great emotion. I knew Pat wouldn't have wanted that his friends to do that. He had made his peace with God, family, and friends.
Instead of weeping, I turned to his writing to feel his presence. It was there, in those blog and Facebook entries. And, as I reread his words, I could see and hear Pat using that brilliant hyper-memory to allow me not only into his past but into my own. What a gift Pat Crabtree left behind. Maybe a family member will publish more of his extensive writing in the future.
At Pat's request, his body was cremated. There was no service or visitation per his instructions. But, months later the family held a memorial on Pat's front porch, a touching remembrance filled with great stories of him. What a beautiful day it was.
I thought about God in heaven being entertained by his new arrival, Pat Crabtree. I was sure He was enjoying talking with Pat about how things in Southern Ohio were doing. Maybe Pat was also flying with angels, I considered.
I remember when Pat wrote about “The Significance of an Archangel in Your Livingroom” for the News on January 12, 2017.
He wrote …
“When God has a very special task to be carried out, he usually assigns it to one of these three powerful angels. There are lots of run-of-the-mill, everyday angels and they also have their work to do but the heavy-duty assignments go to Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael.
“According to Jewish tradition [but not The Holy Bible] there are a total of seven Archangels. But, for my purpose here, I go with the three that I have named at the outset. If you do not agree, that's fine... no problem.
“The point of my discussion of the three Archangels is simply this: Would you ever expect God, in any of His three forms, (The Father, The Son, or The Holy Ghost, and some would say The Holy Spirit), to show up on your doorstep? Well, hell no you wouldn't! Why not? Because God has a lot of super-important stuff to do, plus, you could never withstand His presence – it would instantly annihilate you. You could not endure it – they wouldn't find a speck of your DNA if you were to stand before God. That's one good reason why He has the angels as helpers. Hanging out with a regular angel will in no way cause you the slightest bit of harm and, in fact, it happens to people all the time. Such angels are usually present to convey a message or advice to their recipient.
“However, and this is the real crux of the matter, if you are sitting in your favorite armchair with a beer one evening, brooding through the eleven o'clock news, and you turn around to find The Archangel Michael [or Gabriel or Raphael] standing there staring at you, then I'd say you've got a damn big problem.
“Let me put it another way... the Archangels aren't mentioned all that much in The Holy Bible but when they are, there's something biblical going on, a mission of God. For example, on The Day of Armageddon, it will be Michael who leads God's armies against Satan's forces. So, I'm talking big here... as in monumental.
“In summary, if this happens to you... well just allow me to say that I would not want to be in your stinking shoes if it does happen. Did you ever think about what you would do if this were to occur? ...maybe develop some sort of a plan ahead of time? I would strongly advise you to do so because this is not going to be a moment in which you want to be caught stammering, appearing to be the biggest buffoon on the block.
“Anyway, it's just some information, food for thought, that I thought people ought to have.
“Oh, and one more thing... if a guy shows up like that who says his name is Melchizedek, I would also pay very close attention to anything that he might have to say too!”
And, as I read the entry, I laughed and laughed. I could hear Pat just guffawing as he finished writing this religious edification. And, I could see him thoroughly enjoying himself in a new and perfect form, not a tall and weary frame showing all the negative effects from the terrible disease of cancer. At his side, God and all three of those archangels were cracking up too. And, lastly, I could hear the Man Upstairs beg Pat Crabtree for just one more recollection.
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