Touching the Ancient One

October 9, 2007

Winston “Wink” Harbour, another friend from Salt Rock, died last week. Yes, if you’ve been reading my logs, the surname should be familiar. In my May 23, 2007 log, just a few short months ago, I told you about Ed Harbour—his passing, and something of our long friendship. Wink is Ed’s older brother by a couple of years.

Although Ed and I were in the same grade all through school, and therefore closer in many ways, Wink, also played a part in my life. First of all, he always seemed bigger than life to me. He was stronger, faster, and more athletic; those were the most important traits to a teen-age boy back then—maybe now, too. Wink became a football player, a guard, in high school, and he was a good one. Soon, we were hearing things like “the best lineman ever at Barboursville” being voiced in the community. And that may have been true. In the 1948 season, Barboursville was undefeated until late in the season when they met Milton, also undefeated. Milton may have won that game, but Barboursville had a great team, and Wink was one of the anchors.

Ed and I were a couple of years behind, but we wanted to be football players too. In ninth grade, we were allowed to walk over from the junior high to the high school and practice in full pads, this in lieu of our regular physical education classes. That was supposed to give us an edge when we got to the high school the following year. During the summer before our high school debut, Wink took us under his wing and unselfishly taught us all he knew about playing on the line. His teaching served us well over the next three years.

Wink served in the Korean War, and by the time he came back, I was at Marshall. He asked me if I’d like to go with him to visit Hubert Harshbarger in St. Mary’s Hospital in Huntington. Wink and Hubert had been great friends in high school. Hubert went to Syracuse University and had been on the football squad there. He bought a motorcycle and was on the way home when he had an accident that took one of his legs. Hubert was really down during our visit, and Wink worked hard to cheer him up. On the way out of St. Mary’s, Wink was quiet. He turned away from me, but not before I saw tears on his cheeks.

I only saw Wink a few times after that and don’t know much about his later life, but the things I remember from our younger days are good things to remember.