Trego's Mountain Ear

Looking at the end of the year, the biggest loss was John Mee. If you didn’t know Big John, you have my sympathy.  He was one of those rare people whom it was always a pleasure to know.  In the past several years, less than stellar health has confined me more to home, so I hadn’t seen him recently – and I will not see him again.  And that is not just a loss to me, but to all of our community.

So be it.  Big John was always bigger than life, not just in size, but in personality and character.  Let me write some of my memories – if you knew John, you may enjoy the snapshots of his character.  If you didn’t know him, you may get a glimpse of the man and of a boy that it was a privilege to know.

One memory is of a time when 4-H was helping set things up for a LEC annual meeting.  I was still in high school, so John was ten or less.  I’d been given the task of organizing kids to handle the lunch tables – so I dropped the task of setting up the dessert table (all the pies and cakes) onto Big John.   If I was 15, John may have been 9 or 10.  He had the size to handle the task, and, more important, took his work seriously.  An adult 4-H parent (from a community other than Trego) appointed herself to correct Big John, yelling and confronting him about being too young for an important job like handling cakes.

He took it well – far better than I.  My response was to explain that she needed a better view of reality, and might get it if she would only remove her head from her fundamental orifice.  She left John alone, and went off to complain to my parents.  So be it – both John and I liked cakes and pies, and he handled his task competently.  On the other hand, I left with the suggestion that I might learn to be a bit more tactful.

Big John had challenges reading – he was a victim of our education system.  Figure it was 1966 – Trego had a challenge hiring teachers, and Wilda B. Totten, the County Superintendent, passed on the names of a young married couple.  Oklahomans, I believe.  Long story short, they were hired before their transcripts arrived, and I remember Dad’s comment: “They didn’t even attend college long enough to flunk out.”  Somehow, in the rushed schedule to get school going for a massive increase in students, they had hired a pair of non-readers to teach.  To be fair, it was an easy mistake to make, and they left shortly thereafter. I think this story comes from the last conversation John and I had, with him reminding me of the importance of good teachers.

Big John liked lever action rifles – one of my treasured memories is watching the lengthy transactions – it wasn’t really haggling – between Big John and Dad about one Winchester lever gun or another.  Or a Marlin.  It wasn’t a commercial transaction – it was a friendly visit, over a topic that the two enjoyed.  I recall catching guff from Dad for no greater misconduct than selling a rifle ‘before Big John had a chance to even see it.”  Selling it at a good profit wasn’t the point of business – the sale, the negotiations that could go on for most of a week was.  Lever action – his father’s bolt action Swedish rifle was just a bit too modern.  The gas-operated semi-automatics I used after a shoulder injury just never held the appeal of the old lever guns – and that was in the 20th century.

I don’t know if Big John ever had a drivers license – he told me he didn’t.  I always suspected it came from the poor instruction at school during those early tunnel years.  He explained that he had to be more law-abiding on the road than I did because of the lack – and I’m sure he was.

I remember John’s comment a few years back – that the best paid years of his life were in the seventies.  I suspect the seventies ran from 75 to 85 for Big John – but it was a time when a strong man with a chainsaw could make a good living in the woods.  I guess, in a way, Big John was born 30 years too late – but if he hadn’t been, a lot of us would have never known him.

So my farewell to a man whose life often brushed against mine.  My condolences to Sylvia, and to all he left behind.  There are more stories I could tell, memories I will revisit – but we shall not know his like again – a friend, a good man, larger than life in stature, personality and character, born into a time where he almost, but never quite, fit.  A heart attack somehow seems appropriate – no heart could ever be strong enough to last the man I knew.  I think that losing John was the biggest loss to my community in 2025.