Honey Bunch

In February 2002 Mistah and I went to Portal, Arizona. We’d read about it in William Least Heat Moon’s Blue Highways – a favorite book for both of us.

It’s a gorgeous mountain-and-canyon area in the Coronado National Forest, right over the New Mexico border. It actually looks like a mini-Zion National Park, but without the people, and with free camping, right on a river.

Mistah Schleckah and I really like free camping, right on a river.

Bill and I hiked up to the top of one of the trails, and were enjoying a beautiful moment of silence, solitude, and eachother.

Then we heard the unmistakable sound of people heading toward us. With a dog. We caught a glimpse of two older people heading our way and we just kind of sighed, rolled our eyes (“this is our spot!”) and got ready to head back down to the river.

What happened instead is we made 2 friends: Horton and Sandy Bunch, from Tyler Texas.

We told them about our travels. They told us about their daughters and grandchildren – who call him “Honey” – about their historic brick house in Tyler, home of the annual Tyler Azalea Trail, and about birding. They were in Portal because they’re avid birders.

I said, “I was just looking in the bird book the other day and decided my favorite bird is the Painted Bunting.”

The painted bunting is, after all, a cool looking bird.

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Horton proceeded to tell us a hilarious story about birding with an organized group, and not only spotting two Painted Buntings, but watching them mate. The act of which he proceeded act out for us. Horton is NOT a small man and seeing him strut around, pretending to be a male Painted Bunting, in heat, well, it was pretty entertaining.

We said goodbye to our new friends, went east to Florida then south to the Keys then north to Connecticut then south to Asheville then west through the gulf states, and then in November of that year, went to Tyler to visit the Bunches. Actually, they’d sold their historic house in Tyler when their girls grew up, and lived in a double-wide on acres and acres of land out in Brownsboro.

Bill and I drove through dry county after dry county – we just wanted to bring our hosts a bottle of wine! – to no avail. We were chagrined, and quite confused, to find that not only is northeast central Texas full of dry counties, but no one seems upset about it.

We arrived without wine, had a lovely dinner at a fish house, and got into a very interesting political discussion that night. Horton was a dyed-in-the-wool, full-on Republican for his whole life . . . until George W. Bush. He then completely changed his political slant, and he joined the Democratic party with a vengeance.

The next morning, Horton gave us copies of Jim Hightower's newsletters, and off we went on our merry way.

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Horton called this his redneck shirt.

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Sandy Bunch sends a beautiful Christmas card every year, with a photo of a sunrise on their property, and a quote from the Bible. Sandy, a big fan of Mary Magdalene, told me she has had many many love affairs with monks – Thomas Merton was a favorite at the time. For the next few years we exchanged Christmas cards and an occasional email, but we didn’t see them again until 2005, when we were passing through that part of Texas again.

This time, we bought wine in advance, we had a lovely dinner – along with another couple – at their home, and that night Horton showed us Jeff Foxworthy's “redneck” stand-up routine video. Horton’s laugh is loud, high, infectious, and completely incongruous – you do a double-take when you hear it coming out of him, then just go right along with it.
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In the morning Sandy and Horton’s granddaughter Miranda came for the day. There is nothing quite like a 5- or 6-year old, speaking to her 71-year-old grandfather, and innocently calling to him, “Honey?”

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Yesterday Horton’s son-in-law called and left a message for us. Horton was killed in a accident on Monday. He'd gotten out of his truck because he was having car trouble, and a passing van hit him.

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Update: the driver of the fan was arrested and charged with intoxication manslaughter, and is being held in a Henderson County jail on a $1 million bond.

The world lost a good one on Monday. Horton Bunch was good and devoted husband, dad, “Honey,” and friend.

Our hearts go out to Sandy and her daughters, her grandchildren and sons-in-law.

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Our death is not an end if we can live on in our children and the younger generation. For they are us, our bodies are only wilted leaves on the tree of life. ~Albert Einstein