Posted on 01/28/2005 6:39:57 PM PST by Congressman Billybob
With great sorrow, but also with great joy, I attended the funeral this week of Dusty Rhodes in Highlands, North Carolina.
Dusty was born in Georgia, but was working in the coal fields of western Kentucky when World War II broke out. He went into the service, did his duty. After the war, his new skills earned him a job with the telephone company. One of his first assignments brought him to Highlands, to install the new rotary phone service. There were several young women who handled all the calls on this small, operator-driven system. Dusty’s efforts put them out of work. One of them was Manila Reese.
Dusty and Manila met, took a shine to each other, and got married. They settled down to raise a family. They built the small building to house “Rhodes Superette,” which has provided a good living to three generations of that family. But there is much, much more to the extraordinary life of this “gentle man” as Pastor Robinson called him at the services at the First Baptist Church.
Dusty was a lay preacher at his Church. He taught Sunday School. More than that, he lived his faith every day of the week. I knew Dusty personally for 56 years. I never heard him say a harsh word about anyone else. I never heard anyone else say that THEY heard Dusty say a harsh word. He was, as I said to his children, Kitty and Dusty, Jr., “family to all of us.”
One in five of all the residents of this small town were crowded into the Church for the services. Had the services waited until school was over for the day, attendance would have been far higher. This was a man who was a kind and thoughtful friend to everyone he ever met, with no exceptions.
I’ll tell two stories I know about him that describe this man, and that were not in his obituary nor in the eulogies delivered at the service.
The first is highly personal. When my son died at college, 14 years ago, Dusty showed up at my mother’s house in Highlands with a platter of food. No one had called him. He just heard, as he heard everything in this town, that we had a family tragedy, and he responded as Southerners often do, with the sacrament of food.
The second story happened many times. Rhodes Superette always closed fairly early at night, so the family could go home for their suppers together. It was, of course, closed on Sundays, though much business was lost by that choice. Though his business wasn’t open at night, the tourists who come to Highlands in three seasons of the year could still count on him.
People coming up from Atlanta drive right by the Superette. Those who’d met Dusty could call him and say what they needed when they arrived late Friday. The groceries would be bagged and labeled, sitting behind the store. Folks could pick them up on the way into town, and come by to pay later in the weekend, or have the price put on their tab. (Yes, the Superette is an old-fashioned type of store, where next to the cash register is a flip-file with customer cards in it. The total of your purchase goes on the ledger, and you sign for it.)
Why did I use the word “joy” concerning the services for Dusty? Because that was his nature. The title for the Church bulletin for him is, “Homegoing Celebration for Dusty Rhodes.” Because of his deep faith, which he lived out every day, he was a joyful man. And he passed on that joy as best he could to everyone who crossed his path. No matter who you were, regardless of age, occupation, race, creed, color, or national origin.
Pastor Robinson preached up a storm about that very aspect. He read the three references in the New Testament to Barnabas, whose name means “he who encourages.” And he said that those passages applied every bit to this fine man who was a mainstay of this community from when he chose to marry and settle down here, in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina.
There is a passage I ran across before Dusty died. I cannot imagine a better epitaph for a man who will live on in the hearts and minds of thousands of people of all ages and walks of life, who had the privilege of knowing him.
“The best portion of a good man's life is the little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and love.” --William Wordsworth
About the Author: John Armor is a First Amendment attorney and author who lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. CongressmanBillybob@earthlink.net
Never met the man, but that doesn't lessen my interest. He sounds like the sort of man I'd like to, but probably never, be. Thanks for posting.
Dusty Rhodes, the wrestler, real name is Virgil Runnels.
That's what I thought.
No, this isn't the same wrestler we are thinking about. This is just a regular guy. I heard the wrestler Dusty Rhodes is aged and started some sort of business years ago.
Is this the same Dusty working as a Sergeant At Arms in the state House?
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