Remembering Junior Cagle

Melvin Cagle, Jr. passed away on November 6, 2011 after a 2 year battle with the after effects of 2 strokes.  For most of my life, I knew him as my cousin, though in reality he was my uncle.  In truth, he was most like an older brother, teaching me how to hunt and fish and even a little bit about women, all when I was a young teenager.

My first memory of him was his riding his bicycle up a home made ramp of board-laying-on-bucket, flying through the air like Evil Knievel, landing on the down slope of his front yard in Reeves Cove and grinning from ear to ear.  He was exciting.  An adventurer.  An entrepreneur.  A traveler.  And the best decision he ever made was marrying Hester, his wife of 55 years.  Together they raised a family of 3, Danny, Mel and Joyce, and ran 2 successful companies, Cagle Construction and M&H Auction.  They worked hard, paid cash and enjoyed the fruits of their labor through golf, fishing and travel.  They are 2 of the finest people I've ever known.  Sure, they had their faults, just like the rest of us.  But they never put on airs and always remembered where they came from.

June taught me to shoot and one of his first lessons, at the McIntosh house in Reeves Cove, involved a double barreled 12 gauge shotgun with a plastic stock.  We were sitting under an apple tree in his front yard and I had never fired one before.  He assured me that it was okay to pull both triggers at the same time, so I did.  The blast put me flat on my back and produced a big, colorful bruise that lasted for quite a while. Tears filled my eyes and I was shocked and hurting.  But soon I had to laugh, as he sure was!   I thought Hester was gonna kill him!  She was more than a little upset and thought my mom, Emily, would kill them both!  We laughed long and hard over the years at this story. 

It seems like June always had work to be done and I was always looking to earn money.  When building his first house in Reeves Cove, he decided to dig a well in the basement and because it was solid rock, he had to use a lot of dynamite.  He hired me to go down in the well after a blast to fill the bucket with rock, which he pulled up with a windless.  He paid me off with a pair of water skis, which I thought was very cool, until I realized I didn't have a boat or a car!  So, I converted them to snow skis and careened down through the woods in the dead of winter, only to be stopped by a very large poplar tree, much to the amazement of my witness and friend, David Rutherford. 

Another time, he paid me to clean up a large pile of lumber from a barn.  This time payment was a 16 gauge, single barrel shotgun, which I still have.  I hunted squirrels and rabbits for many years with that gun and even won a turkey shoot with it one time.  It's a treasure. 

Tomorrow I will help carry his body and casket to his final resting place. It won't be easy, but it will be an honor.   He was a good man and I will miss him.