Happy Birthday John -- I Wish

John H. Edinger, Jr., 1940-2010
(Photo: John H. "Jack" Edinger, III)

John would have been seventy-three years old today. I tried to always send him a card. His birthday follows so closely behind Christmas and New Years that it kind of sneaked up on me and I had to rush to find a card. As often as not, if memory serves, my card was late. 

Along with the card I also generally bought him a book. Books were about the only kind of gift from me that he appreciated. It was a challenge to find one that he had not already read or knew about. Memorable are the occasions when I got him one that he really enjoyed. He would tell me all about it, many times over the breakfast table at some greasy spoon, in Mount Airy where he lived or else here in Augusta. Whenever Connie and I visited him and Mom—or whenever the two of them visited us—John and I always went out for breakfast. It seems we did just about all our talking over sausage and eggs, grits on some mornings and hash browns on others, sometimes a little bacon, or a stack of pancakes, and gallons and gallons of coffee. 

We talked about almost everything … politics, economics, our families, current events, sports (John loved baseball), and history were the major topics. John knew more history than most anyone else, probably more than some who teach it for a living. He knew the Civil War, the two World Wars, and military history in general. His knowledge of U.S. history, of North Carolina history, and of the history of Surry County was vast. Next to history, we talked a lot of baseball, mostly about the Boston Red Sox, John’s favorite team. John always did most of the talking. He was a raconteur. For my part, I gave him what every raconteur craves, an attentive ear. He would have talked all day, I sometimes thought, had I not reached my limitations as to how much coffee I could hold. 

I like to image that, had he not met his untimely death, John would still be with us, Mom would still be in Mount Airy, the Red Sox would still be chasing a pennant, and the world would be as it should be. But the world changed a couple years ago. And it’s taking a lot of getting used to. 

Happy birthday, John. No card this year—it would be late again anyway. And the book I would have gotten you, Carlo D’Este’s Eisenhower: A Soldier’s Life, I’m reading myself. We would have had some interesting conversations about it, I’m sure. On the bright side, I’m glad I won’t have to endure all that restaurant coffee anymore.