A final tribute to a good man

If you'll pardon the personal aside ... the world lost a good one today, when my uncle, Bill Chisholm of Henryetta, Okla., died after a brief (much briefer than it was supposed to be) battle with cancer. For logistical reasons, I won't be able to make it back for the funeral, but my thoughts and prayers are with his family. I remember him teaching me how to clean a fish when I was a child. I remember him playing Old Maid with my daughter, who was about 5 at the time, when we arrived at their house one year on Christmas eve. I remember gloating to him when I was 11, after Arkansas creamed Oklahoma in the '78 Orange Bowl, and I remember him being classy enough not to gloat back when the Sooners got their revenge a few years later. I remember the way he helped take care of his in-laws, my grandparents, in their final years. I am thankful to him for all those things, and I am also thankful that he was able to die at home, with his wife, children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren at his side, in the same house out in the country where he and my Aunt Sue have lived for as long as I can remember. He is in a better place now, a place where the lake is always stocked, the fish are always biting, and there is always an OU football game on TV.