Dalton Roberts’s podcast about a special song he wrote for his Chattanooga album.

It was my honor to sing a couple of songs at the memorial service for Barney Morgan recently. After illustrious careers as a teacher, Chattanooga Times city editor and columnist, and public servant, he peacefully exited this life.

I seem to grieve less intensely over people who have made substantial contributions to my life. Appreciation so fills me that there is less room for grief. I grieve more over people I was never able to make peace with. I do not like for anyone I love or like to die until there are no ripples of rancor between us.

My grief over Barney's passing was short and keen, swiftly replaced by waves of appreciation for the life he lived and the gifts of understanding he bestowed on everyone who entered his sphere of influence.

Possibly his greatest contribution was helping to civilize us. Oh, there are times we whistle through the cemetery and even strut thinking we are civilized, but there are old field mines left in us from our personal, political and social wars. We keep stepping on them as long as we live. Life is a process of being blown to pieces and then picking up the parts and rebuilding ourselves into more civilized people.

A Barney column helped civilize me. He told of being a young boy in a long line at a movie when he saw a black sailor ahead of him. When the sailor was refused a ticket, Barney lost interest in going to the movie. He thought, "That man is willing to die for all of us and yet can't go to a movie!" I felt deep regret that I was so much older than Barney before such a basic sense of justice came to my life.

A childhood playmate of Barney's came up to me after the memorial service and tearfully shared a similar experience. He said a group of young white boys regularly went to a swimming hole at the foot of a steep hill and sometimes when they left, a group of black boys would come to swim. At that time we were stepping on the field mine called Jim Crow, so one day the white boys threw rocks at the black boys. The next day Barney announced, "I am not going to rock those boys. They have never done anything to me."

Such a simple statement of fairness stopped the rocking and was so powerful in memory that it made an old man cry 65 years later.

As his final attempt to leave the world more civilized, Barney requested that memorial contributions be made to Project Vote Smart. In this day of political extremism and screaming at each other, it was his final reminder that we can only survive by becoming more civilized.

PVS is strictly non partisan, educating people about their government. It has had board members as diverse as senators George McGovern and Barry Goldwater. I just joined, and each year on Barney's birthday (October 19), I will send them a contribution.

Call 1-888-VOTE SMART with questions, or go to their website at www.votesmart.org, or write them at One Common Ground, Philipsburg VT 59858.

For me, it will be a way to keep Barney around civilizing me. God knows I will never quit needing it.

E-mail Dalton Roberts at DownhomeP@aol.com