We miss Patty’s brother, Ray. Among other things, he was an expert on the lore of the Jersey Devil (check out “The Jersey Devil” by Ray Miller and Jim McCloy–it’s a wonderful read), and, oh, could he tell stories!
The Jersey Devil still generates stories, three centuries after it started. It’s easy to laugh at those stories. But when you’re all alone, driving in the Pine Barrens, the laughs get bashful.
Ongs Hat, Double Trouble, Speedwell–I’m glad I’ve been to those places.
My poor brother-in-law! I can’t tell you why, but he received no funeral, no burial, and there’s no obituary in the paper. So I wish to provide what little I can by way of a salute. I wish I could give him a New Zealand haka, like the one in the video above. Ray was a college professor. It would have blown his mind, to be honored by his students in a way like this.
Anyway, he was my friend. And a lot of fun to be around. He’d come over for the weekend, and he and Patty and I would laugh ourselves dizzy, playing Mad Libs or just cracking jokes. I’ll miss him. I already miss him. He and I played an awful lot of chess together.
He was ill and, in effect, lost to us for I don’t know how many years. Five? He was still able to carry on a coherent phone conversation back in September, but we soon afterward lost that, too.
He may be remembered for his two books about the Jersey Devil. Those were labors of love, and I freely recommend them.
Ray, old boy, you didn’t get a funeral, but you are not forgotten, nor will you be. You deserved a haka. But by now you will have already been welcomed by Our Lord Jesus Christ into His everlasting Kingdom–where, behold, He makes all things new.