When I was young - maybe around 7 years old - I had a friend that I called Mr. Allman. Mr. Allman was an older man who lived around the block from my house and my best friend Liz and I would go to his house often for an afternoon of entertainment. We called him Mr. Allman but all the other kids called him Uncle Bug. This was because he was a zoologist by profession and taught at BYU for many years. Going to Mr. Allman's house meant many things for us. It meant a meandering walk down the series of trails in his backyard to see his beehives. After, we would each devour a spoonful of fresh honey scraped right off the honeycomb. I can still taste it! A visit to Mr. Allman's meant finding him in his garden or in his fruit trees. He would offer us a tomato or a cherry and say, "try this on your piano!" Or we might go down to his basement where he kept his collections from his many trips to Africa and he would teach us how to play the tribal drums. I still remember the lesson! Mr. Allman might take us to Uncle Bud's park to push us on the swings. He would ask us what "color" of push we wanted - blue or red hot! Of course we always asked for the red hot pushes. Mr. Allman was our neighborhood nature resource - especially when it came to animals. If anyone found an injured bird or a skunk in their window well or a garter snake - he was the man on the job. He would often have at least one pet snake that we would hold and observe eating a baby mouse. He was a fisherman and once showed us the swim bladder from a fish he was cleaning. We even sat by him at church a couple of times.
My memories of my time spent with him are not vivid. I only wish I could remember more. As I grew up, I continued to visit him on occasion and he would always greet me with a hug and say, "Emily Bug!" (as he called all the children in the neighborhood). I even took Addie to visit him once.
Mr. Allman passed away a few days ago. It is strange to think that someone who had such a presence in my childhood is gone. I wish I would have visited him more and taken all of my kids to meet him. I wish I could tour his house, his yard and garden one more time to relive the memories. Mr. Allman was a man who was kind, genuine, patient and funny. He loved children and wanted to share his passion for nature with everyone around him. I will always cherish the memories I have of this sweet man.
You can read his obituary here: Verl Allman
3 comments:
He sounds like a great man. You do have vivid memories if you can still taste the honey.
I'm sorry to hear that the world is without him now. I like that his swing pushes came in colors.
I was going to suggest that you find a way to communicate these thoughts to Verl Allman's family. I think your sentiments would mean a lot to them. But it looks like you've posted at least a shortened version of this entry as a response to his obituary. That's nice, Emily. I never really had the kind of relationship with Verl that you and others had. Probably because I wasn't as interested in science. But I can see that I clearly missed out on something.
We once picked cherries at Uncle Bug's. I remember one time we saw a snake on one of the trails below his house, and he assured us we didn't need to be scared, and proceeded to tell us all about snakes. What a wonderful man. I am sorry to hear about his passing.
Post a Comment