Memoriaum
Eulogy to a Friend

Robert Terry Green Jr.



February 6, 1967-May 27, 1996





Many of you don’t know me but I’ve been friends with Butchy since we first met in the second grade,  
1974 -75.  I’ve been away in the Army for about eleven years but we always kept in touch.  I would
send him postcards and letters from around the world and Butchy would return with letters of
entertaining local news and his latest discoveries, theories, philosophies.  He had an uncanny ability
to make me laugh and smile from afar.  I always made a point of seeing him when I was home on
leave.  I was proud of my friend and brought fellow travelers, buddies and girlfriends, to meet him. In
no time at all, whether they liked it or not, he would have his arm around them like old pals. He was
very hospitable.



It is a great honor to be able to stand up here for my friend today. I’ve had some experience at public
speaking but no amount of practice can prepare you for something like this. I started jotting down
notes on the flight back here and found that writing about Butch came easily though.  I could go on
and on, I’ve had to shorten this a good bit; it may still be a little lengthy but its Butchy’s day, let’s
hear him out.



Butch would have preferred a drunken Irish style wake or a Viking type funeral pyre on the Potomac.
If he were to walk in here now he would probably call us all wimps and tell us to stop sniveling and to
get all these silly flowers away from him.



Butchy exemplified the phrase you can’t judge a book by its cover.  I think our dear friend Bill put it
best when he said “Underneath all of that he had a heart as big as the great outdoors”.  Its true,
underneath that sometimes brooding, glaring hulk was a benevolent giant full of life and magic. He
was the sunny eye of the storms that often surrounded him.



Butchy believed in God.  He could quote scriptures with the best of them. I’m reminded of the time he
had a confrontation with a door to door bible thumper who strayed onto his porch. His opponent was
forced to retreat and return with some companions for back up.  I often consulted Butch on spiritual
matters and he sometimes did research for me.  He also was an accomplished magician, a wizard.  
Though he stayed on the side of righteousness, he was very knowledgeable and well versed on
other disciplines, other ways.



He was a storehouse of local legends, history, myths. Its a little known fact that he was a regular
patron of the library.  He was a master of the art of story telling; he brought new meaning to the word
embellishment.  He was a talented chess player. On the rare occasions I beat him he would retort
with “I only let you win”.  He also was a skillful fisherman, like a modern Tom Sawyer of the Potomac.
He was known to mentor neighborhood kids, fix their bikes, take them fishing, play softball with them.



Butchy was taken away from us because God or Jesus had a mission for him or needed company.  If
for nothing else I’m sure he got into Heaven on entertainment value.  He was no saint, but his virtues
outweighed his faults.  I’m reminded of a TV commercial I saw recently where a renegade angel is
flying around at night with a supercharged Timex Indiglo watch shining it in bedroom windows and
waking people up.  That’s the type of assignment Butchy would be good at, keeping us on our toes.



I’m sure we all have fond and treasured memories of him, I have a few stories I’d like to share with
you today.  



One of my favorite activities in school was to simply not go.  It was much funner and enriching to bum
around town and down by the river and canal.  On one such occasion I was with Butchy at his Mom’
s house on Salisbury street. His sister was home that day too. Butch and me were upstairs and
heard the doorbell ring. I called down to Khriste, “If that’s my mom tell her I ain’t here.”  It was too
late, the door was already open and Mom was in full earshot.



Another vivid memory of playing hooky was when we did a full scale caving expedition into West
Virginia.  We gathered what gear we could, like packs, flashlights and food then crossed via the old
railroad bridge down river.  We hitch-hiked back from Falling Waters.  On another event we rode
bicycles to Fort Frederick and back in one day.



He loved retelling the story of how one day, in our Middle School years, we had the whole town after
us.  It was during a parade, I think Flag Day, and it wasn’t exactly the whole town. But we did
manage, in a short period of time, and for various reasons, to have in our pursuit the police, the
Clear Spring Band directors, a preacher and Dane Scott (who was older and badder than us).



Mrs. Green, I was not present when your garage got burnt down.



Butchy knew the river intimately. He swore that he had more than once spotted the mythical  
Snallywag  creature of local lore. He said they were scaly, slimy, greenish, monkey shaped beings
half the size of a man. He blamed them for various mischievous acts such as stealing fish from
stringers, stealing bait from fish hooks, snagging lures, stealing beer from coolers and taunting him
with stone pelting and hissing noises. He had analyzed that they were only spotted on land at night
on damp evenings at temperatures within a certain range. From this he surmised that they live in
caves accessed under the river bank. He always told me that if he caught one he would send its
head to me in a jar of alcohol. He said he would not publicize it because the “men in black” would
come and collect the evidence. He was himself reputed to have been spotted crawling through the
mud and weeds along the bank at dusk, half naked, camouflaged, hair in a mohawk and dagger in
mouth. (The Snallywags probably moved away after that.)



On one visit he couldn’t wait to show me his latest pet.  In the back of his combat-style old blazer
was a monstrous snapping turtle. It looked like something from Jurassic park. It had a greater
circumference than a large auto tire. Later that evening we took his truck to party at my cousin Jeff’s
place in Clear Spring. We had forgotten all about the extra passenger until it decided it wanted to be
up front too. I fought the thing back in the dark with half a baseball bat while Butch just put his feet
up on the dash and continued driving while laughing maniacally.



I was fortunate enough to be home for one of his bouts in the amateur boxing “Tough Guy” contest.
Most participants were introduced in the traditional sense like “weighing in at 250, a steel worker
from Bethlehem, Bob “the Bomber”  McGee.”  Butchy’s introduction went like this:  “from
Williamsport, Maryland, homemaker and father of two, Butch “Mister Mom” Green.”  He pummeled
his opponent who threw in the towel.



Karla just gave me a postcard that he had not yet got around to sending me.  He wrote that he had
reached a bench press of 520 pounds this year.  A favorite thrill of mine at the tavern when
encountering him for the first time in a while was to approach him with insults and threats.  People
who didn’t know we were friends would back up in horror thinking “who is this little fool ?”  He would
shock them further by coming back with something like “Its cool man, I don’t want no trouble with
you.”



Once I was home on convalescent leave for “blowing myself up”.  I was staying in a camper in my
folks yard out in Kemps Mill and had brought my dog Boogarwolf  along with me.  She was your
classic little, scrappy, Benji type mutt.  Butch and her took an immediate liking of each other.  One
day he came to drag me out on some adventure but I was in drug induced grogginess and managed
a rare refusal to his normal, adamant,  insistent usherings.  I crawled out of bed sometime later to
find my dog missing.  An extensive dog hunt was launched in the neighborhood with no results.  That
night at the Third Base I told Butch the bad news.  He busted up laughing and I realized the obvious.  
Later on that night he wanted to take off on some new debacle that I just wasn’t up for, but he was
holding my dog ransom.  I had to sneak out of the bar, run to his house and rescue Boogarwolf then
sneak out of town and back home on foot.  



I’m really gonna miss times like that…..



Butchy lives on in all our memories……, he lives on too in his children.  Karla, Grammas, and family,
you’re gonna have your hands full.  The rest of us too have a responsibility, a duty to share with
them a little attention, guidance, and love.



I was on temporary duty in Colorado when I got the call and flew home from there. My uniform was at
my home-base in Arizona. I got in touch with another of my dear friends there to send it to me.  With it
he sent this card.  Inside he wrote:  “I only wish I could have met this mythical warrior you described
him as.”  The legend of Butchy lives on far and wide….



On the front the card reads:



TO HEAL THE HEART.  Inside each of us resides the memories that comfort, the recollections that
soothe, the remembrances we treasure.  May these heal and mend the soul now and forevermore.



See you later Butch, we love you man……..





Post Script,  27 May 97





Dear family and friends,



This written version, you’ll notice, is not exactly as was given at the funeral.  I delivered the original
from a handwritten outline.  I have intended for some time now to record it in writing.  On this, the
anniversary of Butchy’s parting, in honor and respect for his continued place in my life, I have done
so. I have remained true in content to the original as best as my memory and notes will allow.  I have
added to it the account of the “Dam Incident”.  I felt it was too lengthy and perhaps even out of place
to be told the day of the service.  There are a few other minor details that I felt needed inserted;
things that didn’t hit me that day or didn’t fit in that day, but for Butchy’s sake, should be saved.   





Many people genuinely do not wish to be

saints, and it is probable that some who

achieve or aspire to sainthood have never felt

much temptation to be human beings.

-George Orwell



The gods can never leave a man in the

world who is privy to their secrets. They

cannot have a spy here.   -Thoreau







                Sincerely,



                Darren Wayne Jessop
This page is my way of saying thank you to my Brother, Who left us to soon. But still keeps his eye
on us. If you had the previlage of knowing him you would understand. Thanks

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