Passing Of A legend

Forty years of my life was lived in Ahoskie.

I have been gone for 15 years. I don't have any of my family there any more, but my wife has a brother and three sisters that still live there.

We are able to keep up with the goings on by talking with her sisters on a daily basics.

I go online and read the Roanoke-Chowan News Herald to catch up ever so often, but mostly to read the obituaries to see if I am in there.

This morning, I was dismayed to read of the death Of Hunter Spencer Barrow.

Spencer Barrow was a high school football player at Ahoskie when I was maybe nine, 10 or 11 years old.

Spencer played during the heyday of high school football in Ahoskie. He played fullback and middle linebacker.

He ran like Jim Taylor of the Green Bay Packers and played middle linebacker like Sam Huff of the Washington Redskins.

As a 10-year-old boy, I wanted to be just like Spencer.

The Barrow family owned a saw mill in Ahoskie and after Spencer went off to college, they sold their operation to Georgia-Pacific and it is still there today.

I cannot tell you what a thrill it was to meet Spencer on the street in Ahoskie one day and he took the time to talk with me. As a 10-year-old, Mickey Mantle could not have made me happier.

Spencer was such a good football player than he got a athletic scholarship to North Carolina.

During his freshman year, there was a moment where he and Chris Hanberger were doing a drill and Spencer broke his leg.

Hanberger play football for the Washington Redskins for about 15 years.

One Friday night, Spencer came home for the weekend on crutches and in a cast and he went to the Ahoskie game that night.

To give you a feeling of seeing Spencer it was like Danny Talbott coming back to Rocky Mount for the weekend.

That was the last time that I ever spoke to Spencer - some 45 years ago.

I have followed his career. He graduated from Carolina never did he play football again after the broken leg.

He graduated from Wake Forest Law School and set up practice in Raleigh. From time to time, I would see him on the news about a case he might be involved in.

Spencer was a past president of the North Carolina Prevent Blindness as well as many other civic clubs in the Raleigh area. He was a leader in trying to restore downtown Raleigh.

As a youth, and I guess this applies all during your life, that a moment in time may not mean anything to you, but to someone else, it is everything.

That day on Main St. in Ahoskie and on the sidelines on a Friday night just a few words to me gave me a lifetime of joy.