Local wordsmith will be missed

To The Eagle:

Nearing age 80 one gets used to friends passing but when they do it always causes new pain. Some more than others. I received an email from Judy Brawn telling me that Howard had passed away peacefully a week before the beautifully written obituary showed up in last week's Eagle.

Howard and I have been crossing pens, rather than swords, for several years and became friends even though we both love our America with different visions for the country. In our respective youths we both signed up to die to protect her if needed. Unbeknownst at the time, we crossed paths in 1963 at Marine Corps Air Station, Iwakuni, Japan where he was piloting P2V and P3V sub chasers, I was a young Marine Crash Crew member who would have been pulling him from flaming wreckage if he were to crash upon landing. Of course he never did.

Three years ago I was in a convalescent center in Kelso when I looked up to see the brim of a hat followed by two hamster like eyebrows and there he was! Howard had come to see me. Actually he came to see me twice during that month and after getting home they both came to our home for a visit and then we to theirs. Covid got in the way but we did see them for dinner at the Duck sometime ago.

Will miss opening The Eagle and looking for his well thought out, artful letters. The man was a true wordsmith. Peace, my friend.

James Roberts

Cathlamet