Carey and Ashley's Awesome Looking Little Wedding

My brother Kevin

September 3, 2013

Richard ‘Kevin’ Keefer

Anonymous The Dalton Daily Citizen Tue Sep 03, 2013, 11:13 PM EDT

Mr. Richard “Kevin” Keefer, 52, passed away Aug. 29, 2013, after a long battle with cancer, surrounded by loved ones.

Mr. Keefer was born in Atlanta on Feb. 3, 1961, the son of Dolores and Clyde A. Keefer. He attended Dalton High School from 1975 to 1978 and was a member of Dalton First United Methodist Church. He also earned the rank of Eagle Scout and shared his love of Scouting and the Atlanta Braves with his father. Kevin loved to cook and grow his own vegetables. He was an avid hunter and enjoyed being in the outdoors with his hunting buddies. He was a loyal friend and kind-hearted and gentle man.

Mr. Keefer had a long career in emergency services in the area, mostly with the city of Chatsworth. He served as an emergency medical technician with the Dalton Ambulance and Murray County EMS, 24 years with Chatsworth Fire Department as a firefighter and as fire chief from 1987 to 2005. He was also a building inspector.

He is survived by a large, loving family consisting of his parents, Clyde and Dolores Keefer of Chatsworth; his three daughters, Kierston, Kimberly and Katlynn, all of Chatsworth; his brothers, David (Rene) Keefer of Jacksonville, Ala., and Scott Keefer of Atlanta; and his sisters, Deb Keefer (Lewis) Ramage of Minneapolis, Minn., Cynthia Keefer Patton (Denny Fitterling) of Kansas City, Mo., and Dr. Denise Keefer (Bill) Runge of Helena, Mont. He is also survived by his nephews and nieces, Aimee Whatley of Portland, Ore., Carey Hunton Carter of Atlanta, Shane Tyler (Crystal) Patton of Gulfport, Miss., Joshua and Jacob von Herrmann of Hattiesburg, Miss., and Elizabeth Keefer of Jacksonville, Ala.

A private memorial service will be held in the future when his family will gather to remember him.

Mr. Keefer will be cremated and his ashes spread at his favorite hunt camp when his friends gather and celebrate his life.

In lieu of flowers, Kevin requested donations be made to the Boy Scouts of America in his honor.

The family would also like to thank his close friends, Judy and Gifford Laney, Kevin Ballew, the wonderful people of hospice and Chatsworth Health Care Center, and so many others for all they did for Kevin during the last months of his too short life.

Condolences may be left for the family at www.GeorgiaFuneralCare.com.

Georgia Funeral Care and Cremation Services is proud to be serving this family; (678) 574-3016.

Random Appearance of Deborama's WWW and My Life, My Family, Travelling

I'm in Atlanta, which it is now hip to call ATL. I am visiting my son and his girlfriend, and I am staying in the poshest hotel I have ever been in, at a fantastically reasonable rate, thanks to Expedia. (I have a picture of it on my phone, but I will have to upload it later as this computer in the hotel doesn't seem to have a USB port available.)


I have to do another Deborama's Wednesday Website of the Week, but I cannot wait until Wednesday (I will be mostly on the road to Hattiesburg then anyway) and technicallly I should not call it WWW anymore since it is far from being weekly. But I discovered the Believer magazine, a McSweeney's publication, at my son's apartment, and I have been obsessively reading it ever since. Absolutely brilliant, and I hope they'll forgive me lifting the image, since I am using it to plug their product.
Everybody here is laid off, or about to be laid off. It's quite sad what this recession is doing to those of my kids' generation, as if they haven't suffered enough. It's bad for my generation too of course; getting made redundant just as the verdant pastures of retirement come hazily into view is no picnic, I'm sure. Hopefully, I won't find that out firsthand on my return to Blighty, although it is a possibility.

ATL

I am in Atlanta for the start of my fortnight-with-the-family. I have just met Carey's girlfriend Ashley. She is amazingly cute, smart and a great match for him in the personality arena, or so it seems to me. They hug all the time and semi-fondly bicker like an old married couple. She drives a Toyota Camry with a stick shift and she drives like my old high-school buddy and partner-in-anti-social-behaviour Margaret (or Maggie, as I began calling her, and I think it stuck.) I describe the driving style as "like a maniac with a guardian angel", that is, fast, confident and leaves the passengers more breathless and speechless than shaking and scared, as less protected maniacs do. It was actually kind of exciting.
I saw their loft apartment at the Mattress Factory. Nice.
We ate at R. Thomas, which I just cannot recommend enough.
I am now blogging from the Atlanta Public Library, which I also recommend; they're such nice people in Atlanta. I had sort of forgotten over the years.
I just discovered I can't capture a picture to illustrate this post. Oh, well, sorry. You'll have to find your own pictures.

Mississippi family all safe from Katrina

Okay, cast of characters for those who don't know me. Dad and Mom (79 and 72 respectively) are still alive. There are six of us "kids" : oldest, middle and youngest sisters and oldest, middle and youngest brothers. All but youngest brother, who is also the youngest, are married with one or more children. I am oldest sister (and the oldest). (It's beginning to sound like one of those nice logic puzzles, but never fear, this is just for orientation.)
Middle sister's family and Mom and Dad all live in Gulfport, not, thankfully, near the gulf. Youngest sister's family lives in Hattiesburg, MS. Oldest and youngest brothers both live in Alabama, youngest is in a nice little house in Birmingham. The middle brother is somewhat reclusive, so he actually is not very involved in this story. So, before Katrina hit, I phoned youngest sister Denise to check that Mom and Dad were with her and not left behind in Gulfport. Middle sister Cindy was in the midwest working on a contract. Her husband and son took refuge up in Northern Mississippi with another relation. And then, not surprisingly, we had phone silence for three days while I worried and fretted. Because we heard that things were not that good even in Hattiesburg. I now have news, even having received an e-mail from Mom, bless her, that they all had to abandon the house in Hattiesburg (not sure when - Tuesday or Wednesday) due to lack of water, power and food. By the way, there were other people sheltering there, too, a total of nine, including a baby. Denise and family and Mom and Dad set out in a 2-car convoy to the youngest brother's house, where my parents have been lodged and it looks like they may be there a while. All three houses are still standing, but damaged. That's "the blue house" that Cindy's husband built for their family, "the duplex" on the same land that he built for our parents and his very aged father (who apparently "rode it out" there and is also OK) and the lovely Victorian house in Hattiesburg that Denise's husband carefully restored. So it looks like Mom and Dad, at least, may be displaced persons for a couple of months at least. For one thing, the hurricane season is only started! Now there's a disquieting thought.
Oh, and. The parents' car died irreparibly just as they got to Birmingham. Still, we are all grateful, knowing it could have been a lot worse. Pray for those still suffering far crueler fates in Louisiana and Mississippi.

Katrina headed for Mississippi

Most of the web news is focusing on New Orleans and the Louisiana coast in the hurricane Katrina story, but it appears that the Mississippi Coast is taking the brunt of landfall. This is something that concerns Deborama very much, as her mother, father, sister, brother-in-law and nephew all live in Gulfport. The live CNN and Fox News reports from the beach in Gulfport are very frightening. I am waiting for it to be a little later and then I will phone the other sister in Hattiesburg to see if the parents got evacuated and are up in Hattiesburg. I also have a young friend, mainly a friend of daughter Aimee, who lives in New Orleans. Apparently 80% of New Orleans is evacuated. Of course the concern there, apart from the possible loss of life, is the devastation that will result if the levees are breached and the petroleum wastes, toxic chemicals and septic tank contents flood New Orleans, which is up to 10 feet below sea level in places.

I Don't Want to Set the World On Fire

How do you preserve a precious e-mail? What happened to all the priceless chat from pre-internet days on bulletin boards? When all of us who remember an old, old song have died, will that song be around, and if not, will anybody care? Do you know what tunes went through your grandmother's head? Did your great-grandmother go to the cinema and if so, what did she see? what did she like?
While a lot of bloggers have the latest hits running through their heads ("earworms", love that neologism) I occasionally find myself in thrall to "Mairzy Dotes and Dozy Dotes" or "I Don't Want To Set the World on Fire", which is (hard to believe) not in the Rudy Vallee official hits CD. I think, and I should check on this while there is still time, that this was my father's all time favourite song. My mother used to sing Mairzy Dotes to me when I was a toddler, along with late-40s and early-50s country songs or hit songs. Mom was not a big Elvis fan. She was more Bill Anderson, the "whispering cowboy".
So, what runs through your head?