I always thought or my grandfather as my father when I was growing up, I lived with my grandparents from the time I was in the 9th grade and even after I got out of the Marines and started to school at UT Martin. Walter Marion Killebrew my grandfather was my hero, my idle and the best person I have ever had the pleasure of knowing. Always known as Daddy Walter to all his grandsons. Daddy Walter had no formal education and Mildred always made out the payroll for him. I often wondered why. I was probably 14 or 15 years old before I found out he didn't read or write very well. Somehow he educated himself because later on in life I would noticed him setting on the front porch smoking a cigarette and reading the newspaper. Walter built roads, airports and did a lot of sodding on golf courses. Walter was never home, always on the road. No one was close to Walter, he kept to himself and never had much to say to anyone. He had a couple of friends that I knew of and that was about it. Walter had only one eye, he was born with a very large birthmark on the right side of his face and never had sight in that eye. He always drove an old pickup truck and I can still see him in that truck with a cigarette in his mouth and wearing an old straw hat. Walter was a chain smoker until the day he died. For a long time he rolled his own but later in life he started smoking store bought cigarettes as he would call them. Daddy Walter taught me how to drive his old black pickup truck and I remember I was young enough that he had to put wooden blocks on the clutch and brake pedal so I could drive. I never drove on the street or highways only in the fields. When I drove with him he would let me roll his cigarettes and I would hand it to him and he always struck a country match on the dashboard. I recall thought that it was a big deal that he would let me roll his cigarettes. Guess I have to tell this story. I have already stated he was blind in his right eye. In 1944 he was visiting his son Ralph in Benton Ky. Walter and Mildred got ready to leave and Walter backed his truck in a ditch, got out to see if he could get out and with Ralph pushing on the truck he got out and went on his way. What he didn't know that Mildred got out to take a look and when Walter got out of the ditch she was standing by the truck. It was over 30 minutes before he found out she wasn't in the truck. His only comment was "I had never heard her go that long without talking". To this very day I miss Daddy Walter, I miss the fishing trips, I miss going out to the sod fields in that old pickup truck that he taught me to drive. I miss going to the pool hall and him letting me shoot pool while he drank a beer. If my grandmother had ever found that out, Daddy Walter and myself would have been in a heap of trouble. As I said "Walter Killebrew was the best person I ever had the pleasure of knowing". Bob Killebrew </HTML>