Published: June 04, 2009 03:55 pm      

I SAY: What better can one say?

At the end of the day when all is said and done, what better thing can we have said about us than that we were a good person? John Dishman was a good person and I will miss him for a long time.

For more than 20 years I saw John nearly every week, sometimes four and five times a week, and sometimes twice a day or more.

In many settings our careers of choice are adversarial. That was not the case with John and me.

John was a career law enforcement officer and I respected the job he had to do. I was a career journalist and John respected the job I have to do. Mutual, unspoken respect.

I never paused to think of what John thought of me or my work. I just knew we got along great as if we had known each other all our lives. We both liked to talk and, heaven forbid, share a tad of gossip from time to time. I guess that is why we struck a note together.

Mutual respect. Too bad we never shared with each other those feelings but then, that would not have been the manly thing to do.

John and Molly celebrated their 28th wedding anniversary on Thursday, May 28. The next day he wrote on his Facebook page that Friday was his "Monday" and that he was facing three 12-hour shifts. His final message was, "Everyone have a great weekend!"

I have known John since February 1984, when I started working at the Chronicle. The newspaper ran an introduction story on my joining the staff that referenced my last home being Pell City, AL. John came and sought me out.

"I had a childhood buddy, one of my best friends growing up who lives in Pell City. Would you happen to know him?" John asked. It truly is a small world, because Steve Harbison was a captain, training officer and state fire academy instructor for the Pell City Department, a man I had fought fires under.

Steve's father had been pastor of the Bible Methodist Church years ago and Steve was a friend.

From that day forward John and I had a common bond. I am really not sure if Steve ever knew of it or not. From time to time Steve's name would come up in our conversations, but mostly we talked about Crossville, the sheriff's department, what had happened over the weekend or sports. Probably high school sports should have come at the front of the list because John truly loved being associated with sports, whether it be little league or high school football.

A good guy, loving husband and father, a man always willing to help if he could, a man with a sense of humor. A good man. Isn't that what we should all strive to be remembered as?