My
uncle Donald "Bur" Carpenter passed away suddenly last Tuesday at age
63. He was a hard-working watermelon farmer married 44 years with two
kids in Grand Ridge, Florida, an hour west of Tallahassee near the
border of Georgia. It was to be the last summer before his
retirement. We attended the funeral in a little country church not far
from their house. Their entire lives are farming and family, and no
other distractions. Here is a photograph taken last week of the house
they grew up in. "The Life You Save May Be Your Own" is a song I wrote about
my father and Donald growing up in this house. It is a classic cracker
house architecture, tin roof, susceptible to leaks, built in the early
1900s.
