While Amanda Lewis was on her way from Dallas to Long Beach, Mississippi for her father’s funeral, she was tasked with that most monumental of tasks: penning the obituary. With nothing but time and her memories of Harry Weathersby Stamps to guide her, Lewis set about writing what many, many media outlets are heralding as history’s best obit. It certainly doesn’t hurt that Stamps seems like a genuine treasure, and his daughter’s recollections of him make for incredible reading. The whole thing is here, but take a look at these choice quotes, which show that Stamps was …
A lover of food: “He had a life-long love affair with deviled eggs, Lane cakes, boiled peanuts, Vienna [Vi-e-na] sausages on saltines, his homemade canned fig preserves, pork chops, turnip greens, and buttermilk served in martini glasses garnished with cornbread.
A man of politics: “One of his regrets was not seeing his girl, Hillary Clinton, elected President.”
A slave to fashion: “His signature every day look was all his: a plain pocketed T-shirt designed by the fashion house Fruit of the Loom, his black-label elastic waist shorts worn above the navel and sold exclusively at the Sam’s on Highway 49, and a pair of old school Wallabees …that were always paired with a grass-stained MSU baseball cap.”
A fighter to the last: “He particularly hated Day Light Saving Time, which he referred to as The Devil’s Time. It is not lost on his family that he died the very day that he would have had to spring his clock forward. This can only be viewed as his final protest.”
May he rest in peace. It sounds like he’s earned some rest …
