I wanted to take a moment to remember Ronnie Word's dad, Herman. Mr. Word gave my brother and me a summer job - our first job, in fact. Together with Ronnie Word, his sisters, my brother and several others, we all learned to appreciate the hard (but often fun) work of picking tomatoes from the Word family tomato farm.
Mr. Word was a quiet man (unlike his rowdy son) and soft spoken. But, when he spoke, we listened. And, as I recall, with Ronnie Word as our "mentor," Mr. Word "spoke" quite often as he tried in vain to keep his son's buddies focused more on picking tomatoes and less on throwing them!
At any rate, we earned spending money from Mr. Word during the summers of the '70s. More than that, we learned lessons of hard work and the benefit of learning to complete a task correctly. You just can't place value on those kinds of things. I'm sure Herman Word could have used better help than what the two Tillman boys provided, but I never heard him criticize. He corrected us, but was always generous. He'll be missed. Thanks, Herman, for giving me a chance and for teaching me things that I remember still.
-Ken
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