Another “friend of long standing” has left us suddenly to begin his new life with our Savior. I have written a good bit about Harold Taylor and his family over the years, but I will review now for you.

I first met Harold’s mom at school when her home-style cooking, generous servings and happy smile endeared her to all of us who ate in her cafeteria. I thought Harold was one of the best looking guys in the senior class at Tryon High when I was still in grade school. He later married one of the prettier girls, Ruth Day, and Fran and I had their predictably lovely daughter Paulette in our intermediate class at Tryon First Baptist.

Harold was well known for his story telling, but we learned as dinner guests at their house that Ruth could tell some, too. Harold was a deacon and trustee of the church, and he watched over their money as if it were his own (much of it was, of course!) When I struggled to prepare the church’s tired old grand piano for a performance by a young pianist from the North Carolina School of the Arts, Harold soon donated a fine new instrument to the church.

Harold was a member of the Tryon Lions Club, and invited me to speak to them years ago when I visited my hometown from afar as a new engineer with stories to tell. I was delighted to see him make cranking motions behind each Lion as their Tail Twister and then fine them for some imagined infraction. As their Secretary-Treasurer in more recent years, he regularly invited me to install their officers. When they finally aged out and disbanded, Harold shared their treasury with the Columbus Lions at my suggestion.

As a member of a panel discussion for the Polk County Historical Association, Harold started telling of walking up Trade Street and identifying the open-door stores (no air conditioning back then) by the smells: fresh produce at the grocery, flowers at the flower shop, shoe polish at the shoe repair, hair tonic at the barber shop, the pungent odor at the tree the men stepped behind to relieve themselves . . . startled laughter! I told Harold afterward that I tried to run a family show there . . . more laughter as they remembered.

Harold was by all accounts a great husband, father, and Christian citizen of our fair county. Here I will quote from a 1996 column in which I wrote: “There are many in our community who do not understand the stance of the former Harmon Field Commission against serving beer at the Field. I have known Harold, Ray [Foster] and Seth [Vining] Jr. nearly all my life, and I understand that they are like my grandfather and my mother: there are some principles of living that do not change with time, and my friends have stood to be counted among those who stick by their principles when challenged—men for all seasons, I would say. Unlike Sir Thomas More, they were allowed to keep their heads, if not their jobs.”

Beer flows freely at the BBQ festival at Harmon Field and Tryon even has a beer fest now. Only Ray Foster remains of that former commission to contemplate the changes that 20 years have wrought in Western North Carolina, and I believe he is blissfully unaware in his room at White Oak. He usually looks up and smiles when I enter, but sometimes he just gives a flicker of recognition and goes back to sleep.