DEAN’S FUNERAL
Dean Kahl died about a month ago. Dean was great fun to be with and was central to our old man’s group which meets on Friday at the McDonalds in Black Mountain. I don’t know the dates exactly but think he retired from Warren Wilson College where he taught chemistry about ten years ago and joined our old man’s group. Then about five years ago he and his wife moved to where she grew up near Greensboro and we only saw him a couple of times a year when he stopped by on his way to visit his daughters. We missed him and sometimes briefly included him on Fridays over Facetime.
Two of his sayings were passed out at his service: “Doing chemistry is like being in heaven” and “I curse Donald Trump and all his evil ways”. But Dean would have said the second with a smile because he was a sunny person who got along with everyone.
He taught chemistry with Vickie Collins, my next door neighbor on College View Drive, and I think they had a wonderful time teaching. I once made a little book of the Chemistry Department (on blurb.com), but being a non chemist I didn’t get caught up in the lure of chemistry. But what I did get caught up in was the Elvis Presley shrine that they set up in the Chemistry hallway and found a number of pieces at the Dreamland Drivein Flea Market that contributed to the museum, the best a lurid image of Elvis on a gaudy black velvet background.
Dean’s wife died about a year ago and Dean returned to Asheville and rejoined our group about five months ago. He had lots of projects including a geneology project and writing a book about the big bang, the origin of the universe, in words simple enough that a child could understand it. He loved baseball, was widely read and could talk about anything. His great passion after retiring was model railroading. He built up a layout in his house and joined model train clubs in both Asheville and Greensboro which included many MAGA members with whom he got along well.
His daughters, Julie and Susie, told wonderful stories about him as a father and a granddaughter sang a verse of Amazing Grace.
I think of Dean every day and miss him.
BILLYBABA’S WANDERING 