Meeting Virgil Ray

What do friends do?

I started sharing my secrets with Virgil Ray during the summer between 6th and 7th grade. That was the summer of 1969.

Virgil never said anything or offered an opinion.

One of the best things about being a kid was not having an appointment book to dictate my life. No running late to meetings. Lazy summer days were spent kicking back, goofing off, wandering around looking for some adventure and/or foolishness to occupy my time.

Creekmore Park was the coolest park in my hometown. It had two pools, an Olympic-size pool for swim meets and general splashing about, and a diving pool for showing off. The diving pool had three different diving boards to perform “can openers,” “cannon balls,” and “belly flops” from a variety of heights. And there was a wonderful, wooded area, the Bird Sanctuary, next to the park where you and your girlfriend could stroll and “bird watch.”

Between Creekmore Park and my house was one of the oldest cemeteries in Fort Smith. Oak Cemetery looks like your stereotypical cemetery. It’s a bit like Elmwood Cemetery here in Memphis. Like Elmwood, it has old mausoleums, massive and ornate monuments, and headstones that hearken back to a different era with dates that go back to the early 1800s. The huge oak trees in the cemetery are ancient and seem to reach into the sky forever.

That summer, I volunteered at the pool as a helper for the Red Cross's Swimming Program. I was a "swimmer's aide" – an entry-level position for 12-year-old boys -- helping the certified swim instructors teach little kids how to swim. We started early in the morning and finished an hour or so before the pool opened to the public. After the lessons, I walked home and ate breakfast. And then I headed back to the pool to hang out and goof off with my friends.

The shortest route home from the pool was to cut through Oak Cemetery.

And that's where I met Virgil.

Virgil Ray died in 1943.

Virgil was buried in Oak Cemetery, and his headstone had something on it I’d never seen before. There, mounted above his name, was a ceramic picture of Virgil in his US Navy uniform. It’s not uncommon now, but at the time, no other headstone had a picture of the deceased. It got my attention and made Virgil Ray more than just a name on a slab of stone. It humanized him.

Virgil was 22 when he died during World War II. To me, he was a full-grown man from the Greatest Generation, smiling at me from beyond the grave. The hundreds of others buried in Oak Cemetery were simply names on interesting stone monuments. But to me, Virgil Ray became a real person. When I looked at his picture that first day, I felt like I was meeting a person. I said, “Hi, Virgil Ray.”

Day by day, I passed his grave, looking at his picture. Eventually, my pause at his resting place turned into a reverent conversation -- almost a prayer -- with this wartime hero. Over time, I began confiding in Virgil, sharing my life with him and even seeking his advice. Silly, I know.

But thus began a "relationship" that has endured my whole life. I left Fort Smith when I was 18 in 1975 and haven't lived there since. But trips home often include a visit with Virgil.

Over the years, I've taken friends and family to "meet Virgil Ray." I remember when I turned 22 myself and had finally reached Virgil's age. I remember how strange it was when I was finally 23 and older than Virgil. By then, I'd been visiting my friend's grave for over ten years.

I discovered that I only lived a half mile from where Virgil lived when he joined the Navy. I've tried unsuccessfully to contact surviving members of Virgil's family. I did some research at the public library and found his obituary and tried to find the surviving members of his family listed there. I always wanted to talk to someone who actually knew him. I wanted to know what kind of man he was. I didn’t know exactly how I would introduce myself to them if I had actually found a surviving family member. But by now, I'm afraid all who knew Virgil have joined him.

Saying nothing over the years, Virgil has counseled me with the wisdom of silence. I have sometimes sat on the grass next to his headstone and waited for an answer to some question I had or some problem I was struggling with. And in that silence, I often received the "answer" I needed. Sometimes I just needed to take the time to talk the situation out and hearing myself speak those things aloud ... I would have an answer.

How many times have you explained a problem you were struggling with to a friend, and almost immediately, upon hearing yourself explain your dilemma, you knew exactly what to do? Hearing yourself explain your problem or detail your prospective plan is often all it takes to set things straight in your mind.

I’ve been careful about telling a non-adventurous friend about an adventure I was thinking about. They were almost surely going to discourage me from having that adventure. For example, prior to me moving to Japan, one of my elderly female relatives who’d never lived outside of the county she was born in attempted to discourage me from my adventure by saying, “Well, you know … they bombed Pearl Harbor.”

“Again?” I said.

She gave me that same disapproving look that she always gave me.

Your best counsel to your family or friends probably won't be anything that you say to them. It'll more than likely be your willingness to listen... and then, having heard, it'll be your willingness to say nothing that will help them the most.

The first rule of being a friend is simply being.

I have sometimes wondered, when I am no more, will some 12-year-old boy, by chance, wander past my final resting place ... and pause for a moment ... and say, "Hi, Tony Ludlow."

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