To my dear friend Howard Miller

(A eulogy delivered on October 16, 2015, in Huntsville, Alabama)

    Howard, you’ve been a great friend and inspiration not only to me, but to most of us gathered here today. I can’t remember the very day I met you, but it would have been in the last week of 1972 in Anniston, Alabama. I was the eager college kid starting his first real job, and you were a seasoned veteran of 5 years as a reporter. You were my mentor at the Anniston Star as you led me around town introducing me to the police commissioner, the chief, the guys around the firehouse. We were almost inseparable during the next 9 months, eating breakfast at the Mr. Good Guy restaurant or the Waffle House across Quintard Boulevard. After hours, we would be hanging out at friends’ apartments eating pizza so spicy you could “put it under the bed on a cold night” or playing a game called “Zilch.” We would hang a knotted plastic bag in a doorway with a pan of water below. Set on fire, the bag would send smoldering drops into the water with a loud zipping sound – a 1970s light show. Forty years later, I’d not mentioned this to anyone before remembering it at your bedside, Howard. And who do you think remembered the same game? Your wife Carol. She obviously was your soul mate.

    During your time in Anniston, Howard, you trained me to notice every miscreant that traveled the streets – people like String Man, who picked up every bit of string he found on the sidewalk and rolled it on a ball in his pocket. He came into the Waffle House with a freshly laundered shirt one day and hung it on the back of a seat. You were quick to point out the sign – “Shirts must be worn to be served.” That was your humor. It was always a bit offbeat, often self-deprecating. You never took yourself too seriously, nor did you let anyone else feel egotistical without some discomfort. I loved you for your honesty untamed.

    I could say that we'll all miss you, Howard, but you will truly always be with us. Your quick wit and unbelievable stories will live in my memory as I am sure it will in those gathered here. When we believed things could get no worse, you would remind us that they could. I asked our friends to send me some of their recollections of your wit and your friendship. Melinda Gorham sends this story: “We all relished Howard's humor, but he was a man who was inordinately kind. He patiently saw me through marriage, divorce, and the death of my father. Yet when I look back I'll remember the Howard who could poke his head in my office on frenetic days and whisper with an impish grin, ’Give up now. Cut your losses.’”

Ronda Miskelley recalls the story behind the picture of you and Ringo Starr. Internationally renowned artist Nall had invited you and Carol to a party in France, attended by the former Beatle and other dignitaries. Prince Albert was there, and Nall took him on a tour of the estate – through your room and the elegant adjoining bathroom. Your observation on that situation: “We had Prince Albert in the can.”

    I followed you, Howard, to the Tuscaloosa News in late 1973, after you wrote me that they were “giving away money.” You were making nearly $200 a week there – what’s that, five dollars an hour? Again, we spent many nights hanging out in your apartment on 8th Avenue. You would be boiling eggs, and as we picked guitar in the next room, you would wonder whether we might go back into the kitchen and find baby chicks hatched in the boiling water.

Your attention span was short in those days, and you bored of Tuscaloosa. You moved to Jacksonville, Florida, where coincidentally I came to visit you on your last day at the newspaper. Your co-workers said you must have been at lunch or you had gone home early. When I found you that night, you said you had cleaned out your desk that morning. You were tired of the job. You had mailed your letter of resignation, and they would receive it in a few days.

    I heard you left there and took a job in New Mexico, where you drove into town and met the publisher, who introduced you to the town barber that would rent you an apartment. You did some exploring, took the key back to the barber, thanked him and headed back east. I can’t remember whether you told me this tale or if came second-hand. Your life was a legend for many of us, and we never know whether it’s fact or folklore.

    Twenty years later, we were working together again at the Huntsville Times. As a seasoned newsman, no one had to give you  assignments nor ask you to follow up on stories. You always anticipated what editors needed, and you got it done. You never boasted, bragged nor took credit for things you had done. You just complained about them, and we knew you were not sincere. You never promoted yourself; you lived at your own pace. What you lacked in motivation, you more than made up with dedication. I tried last night to remember something bad someone had said about you. I couldn’t remember a single thing. That’s quite an accomplishment.

    You took under your wing a young cartoonist who came to The Times in the 1980s. David Swann, now of the Honolulu Advertiser, remembers you with these words:

“Howard was the first person I met at the Huntsville Times in 1984, when I returned home after 4 years in the Air Force. He was a kind and decent man with a big heart underneath that gentle yet acerbic wit. He made me feel welcome in the newsroom from our very first meeting, and that meant a lot to me at that very uncertain time in my life. I will always miss him dearly.”

    Remember those uncertain times we’ve had, Howard? You’ve been my friend for more than 40 years. We somehow always ended up in the same place--and not always a happy situation. We had an ongoing contest to see which of us could be more miserable. At your bedside last week I told you that you had won. But maybe I was wrong. You’ve made me do some serious soul-searching during the last few weeks. We’ve never talked seriously about life and the afterlife, but you’ve had to listen to my concerns about my soul and yours while you lay in your sickbed unable to respond. I believe you knew the 23rd Psalm that I recited to you. I saw you mouth the first few words of the Lord’s Prayer along with me. Today, Howard, I know you are not in misery.

    Your friends and loved ones are here to rejoice in your life and to remember your humility. Thank you, Howard, for your love, for your many talents, for your wit and for your wisdom. We have all gained so much  from knowing you.