Madison Taylor

We buried my dad on Wednesday.

Lots of people know that already. The miracle of newspaper obituaries and word of mouth usually take care of that. In the case of Ed Taylor of Danbury — always invariably of Danbury because he loved it there so — many didn’t find out quickly enough. The reach of newspaper obits isn’t what it once was. Lots of people admitted later that they hadn’t seen the notice or looked at the Winston-Salem Journal until the day after.

But I sort of knew that already. Nothing in newspapers is what it used to be.

So we buried my dad on Wednesday, in what seemed only hours after his death at 4 a.m. Monday at the Palliativve Care Unit at the Sticht Center aboard the campus of Baptist Hospital in Winston-Salem. It was no great surprise — his health had been in decline for a long time. In the days leading up to my parents 50th wedding anniversary he went downhill quickly. I’ll write more about this in a column to be posted later in time for Father’s Day.

What I wanted to mention today was how large a figure my dad was — and will remain — in the career I chose in newspaper work. My mom was the journalist, a graduate of UNC who worked for newspapers before marriage and a family came along — but my dad was the newshound. Current events was and still is the primary topic of conversation within our family. For years my dad bought two papers a day — the morning Winston-Salem Journal and the afternoon Sentinel. Later CNN was on TV most of the day Monday through Friday — especially if nothing good was on the Western Channel.

In my 14 years of writing columns for the Jacksonville Daily News my dad was a steady topic — almost like a recurring character in a play. Readers there learned that he was a larger than life figure who loved to laugh, enjoyed a good time, had a sharp political mind, was a huge sports fan — especially of Wake Forest — and could get agitated from time to time. He was entertaining and maddening but ultimately loveable.  In fact as we sat in the formidable Taylor family plot Wednesday at Danbury Cemetery– where generations of my family are buried — I wondered how someone of the spiritual and physical stature of my dad could be placed in such a small place.

I know that as I move on in journalism — or whatever comes after — I’ll still be guided by the things my father taught me. His observations and beliefs play over and again like steady loop in my head. He, as much as anyone else, trained me for what I do today.

I thanked him for that as his final moments drew near on Sunday night.

And I always will.

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