Good Afternoon Everyone, for those of you who don’t know me, I’m Ronnie and Julian and I were the oldest and youngest respectively of Mama and Daddy’s children with five siblings (Lyndal, Kerry, Joann, Wanda & Anita) between us. There are also twenty years and a full generation between us. In fact, Julian and Jackie were married and already had Danny by the time I came along which gave me the unique distinction of being an uncle before I was born.
The age difference and some geographic separation also meant that I didn’t see as much of Julian as I did my other local siblings while growing up. That changed the summer after I graduated from High School when I asked Julian about a summer job. I didn’t have any particular job in mind, but anything had to be better than Kennon Tatum’s tobacco patch. As it turned out, Julian was ready to start building a chicken house and hired me to work with Danny on building it. The three of us would gather at the building site in the morning, Julian would tell us what he wanted done and go on about his business. Danny and I would do as instructed, and Julian would come back at the end of the day to inspect. And it will probably come as absolutely no surprise to anyone present that our work usually wasn’t up to par.
One of our first jobs on that chicken house was to dig the holes and put the support poles in place. Shouldn’t be too difficult, Julian showed us where the corner posts went, told us how much spacing between, how deep (three feet), gave us a posthole digger and a level to make sure they were plumb. We laid everything out, marked off where each post went and got to work with the posthole diggers. Now Danny and I were both eighteen and in good physical shape, but hours on end in the sun with those posthole diggers just about whipped us. Anyway, by the end of the day, we had a respectable row of equally spaced and aligned posts in place and were feeling reasonably proud of our accomplishment when Julian showed up for inspection.
Julian’s first action was to stand at one end and give a one-eyed sighting down the row. Then he’d move up two or three poles and sight down the row again until he isolated a particular pole. Then he’d take the level and check it on two sides. Then he’d set the level down, grab the pole, rip it out of the ground and throw it to the side. He repeated this until that previously uniform row of posts was as gapped as adolescent dental work. Danny and I weren’t too pleased to see a good portion of our hard work discarded with no apparent concern, but we had enough sense not to voice any objection. Once he was satisfied with what was left, he gave us a stern talking to on how it was always quicker and easier in the long run to invest the time and energy to do something right the first time. Unfortunately for me and Danny, Julian’s standards were such that we got to hear that particular speech several more times that summer.
But, that was Julian. He didn’t do anything halfway. If he chose to do it, it was going to be done right.
Julian was also frugal to a degree that some folks might call compulsive. The following is paraphrased from an experience relayed by Heath Dasher. On Wednesday before Thanksgiving 2000, Drew, Mickey Stubs and Wayne Dasher had prepared a Bar-B-Cue lunch for the Nature’s Choice employees as well as neighbors & friends. Mind you, this was dining in the rough. The setting was the open air, sheltered work space at the mill and everyone pretty much had to sit on whatever they could find. Bear in mind also that this was after Julian’s accident, so he wasn’t moving very easily. Anyway, as folks finished their meal, they would throw their paper plates and soda cans in the trash. No one else was really paying much attention, but Julian was watching the trash. When everyone was apparently finished, Julian (with difficulty) walked over to the trash, (with more difficulty) bent over and picked out all the aluminum cans and moved them to the recycle bin, after all, they were worth several cents each. And according to Heath, right then, he fully understood the statement, “The Rich keep getting richer, the poor keep getting poorer.”
The last item I want to share with you today I plagiarized from a tribute written by Drew. To Papa Julian, Thanks for letting me work beside you. Since I was in the third grade, you have shown me through example what it truly means to work hard. The memories and skills I have from the bark mill like learning to drive, weld, and mechanic will always serve me well but are really secondary. What I am most grateful for are the times when I was able to sit and listen to you talk about business and life. In the process of teaching me to believe in myself, you also taught me the value of many other virtues, not the least of which were honesty, self-reliance and a strong work ethic. When I look back over my life, I cannon remember a time when you have not been there for me and our family. You are what most men dream of becoming. Thank-you for being a man of character; one day I hope to be half the man you are.
I believe I can safely say Julian’s priorities were his faith, his family and his work. May we each treasure his memory and honor his life by embracing those same values and living a life that’s full to the brim.