Floyd Harrell was my cousin, he was about 10 years older than me. I don't remember a lot about Floyd other than he was always nice to me and included me in a lot of things he didn't have to, especially since he was older than me. He was my father's sister's son. They lived the next street over from Mercer on Live Oak which is called Covil now. He attended Forest Hills, Chestnut and New Hanover High School.
By the picture at the left you can see that there was a few years difference in our ages. Even after Floyd married Lynn and they had a baby girl he still treated me like a brother and included me in on lots of things. There was the sports car he had that he would take me riding in. A light blue TR3 and then there was the time I got to go down to the river where he worked he gave me a tour of the pusher tug "Dam Yank". For a kid not yet a teenager that was really a big deal to be treated like an equal. But then that is the our family was. I was always treated like a brother by him and his sister Nancy. Of all my aunts, uncles and cousins they were and still are my favorites. Sorry to say at my age now only Nancy and I are still alive and I don't keep as close contact as I should with her, but I just don't seem to be able to get close to people these days like I once did.
We lost Floyd first in a barge explosion on the Cape Fear River in the early 60s. Then my father in 1980. In 1992 my wife of 20 years and I split. about 5 years later I married my childhood sweetheart. Then Uncle Bill passed away and next it was
Aunt Callie And finally my mother and current wife's parents. That is the bad part about getting older, many of those you love leave you, sometimes by choice and sometimes not by choice. But it can cause you to put up a wall to keep from getting to close to people. Then if I had never known these people what a loss it would have been for me.
Floyd had a little Cushman or maybe it was a Sears scooter at one time and that is probably the reason I have had years of fun riding motorcycles and still do.
Sure do miss him and the rest of the family, but that is the way life is, so we better enjoy and spend as much time as we can with those we love here on earth until that time that we are all together again in Heaven.
Sure do miss him and the rest of the family, but that is the way life is, so we better enjoy and spend as much time as we can with those we love here on earth until that time that we are all together again in Heaven.
