My mother and sisters have given me the honor of, first of all, thanking you for being with us today and throughout these past few difficult days. Your many kindnesses and incredible thoughtfulness have been a tremendous support as we all try to adjust to life without Dave--Daddy--Buddy--Papaw--Uncle Dave--Mr. Ewell.

But my other task is to try to say a few words about this special man who has been among us for nearly 81 years--and I think I could start by reminding you how much Daddy would have hated being described as "nearly 81." He never liked us to say his age on his birthdays, and last summer on July 15, we could only give him a party by calling it his "twice-fortieth" birthday.
 

Daddy was always a young man--ready for a good time, a good laugh, a silly hat, a pair of pink socks, some TNN music, some serious boogie-woogie.
.Ol' Homer, his wife Teresa, and Ol' Dave
 

I think what every one of us here today will remember most about Daddy was how much he loved a good time and how often he made us laugh. One of the most comforting things about the last few days has been recognizing what a huge supply of great stories Daddy has left us all--and how, as we tell the old ones and hear new ones, he is going to keep us all laughing for a very long time.

A lot of the stories he told were about growing up near Opelousas and later in Baton Rouge on College Drive and then out on Scenic Highway as the oldest son in a big south Louisiana Catholic family of eight children, most of whom are here today. You, my dear aunts and uncle, made up his first family, the ones he loved and always wanted to be around and continued to enjoy throughout his whole long life.

And I think all of us 38 first cousins and forty-leven-dozen second cousins and assorted relatives would want again to say "thank you" for teaching us how to have such a good time together and enjoy each other's company so thoroughly despite all the big and little squabbles that every family has.

Although Daddy liked to talk about his early life and how poor his family was, his stories were never really sad. In fact it always sounded like living on a farm in the Depression and riding horses and going to Baton Rouge High and hauling garbage from the Heidelberg Hotel to feed the hogs and building your own camp back in DevilÕs Swamp really might not have been such a bad thing after all.

And then the war came and Daddy was drafted into the Army, where he served on an Air Corps bombardier squadron. Now I have to tell you that World War II as Dave Ewell fought it wasn't much like Saving Private Ryan. To hear him tell it, he and 'Ol' Homer' Delacroix and his other buddies (whose names and life stories he would recall in incredible detail--Daddy had a phenomenal memory for people and events!), for them, the war seemed to involve a lot of riding around in jeeps and running into old friends at some GI bar or finagling extra weekend passes home.

But the war must have changed him, because when he came back, Mamma could finally stand him. She said when she first met him on a blind date before the war, introduced by her good friend Tillie Fitzgerald and Francis Landry (who is here today), she thought he was cute and a good dancer, but a terrible smart aleck and just too full of himself.

All of that, of course, was true--and remained true until the very day he died. Daddy was very vain and had extraordinary taste in clothes. Because he spent his life working hard--and Daddy was a very hard worker--as a contractor in the hot sun on heavy equipment, he truly enjoyed dressing up and wearing smart-looking suits. However, as you know, he also loved umbrella hats, fuschia socks, anything purple and gold, and any other attention-getting attire. The fact is, Daddy loved being the center of attention.

But somehow Mamma was able to see through all of that, and he soon won himself a beautiful, smart young Navy veteran from Addis.

They would have been married fifty-three years this July 5. Their marriage wasn't always an easy one, but they did dance a lot, they had lots of good friends, and their commitment to each other was rock solid. From them, we girls learned what a real marriage looks like: how love and faith can carry you over the hard times and how noisy happiness can be. The decibel level in our house was always very high.

Daddy was very proud of his six daughters--each one of us. He also appreciated the men we married--probably (and they all hate this) because they are all--for better and for worse-- a lot like him.

Daddy was a remarkably strong man, and he made us girls feel safe and loved. Somehow, he also made each one of us feel that we were his favorite, that we were the special one. But everyone knew, including us, that you, Mamma, were really the special one.

He was also a good grandfather. He was lucky because so many of his grandchildren lived close by, and he saw them almost every day. As I said, Daddy was always a young man, and he was never younger than with his grandchildren, who thought his silly hats and funny ways and crazy clothes were perfectly delightful. And if they bleached their hair or colored it green or got a tattoo or a nose ring, he would take a look and say, "You know, that doesn't look too bad--I might want to get one of those myself." (Or, as he told one of them: "Oh, hell, now I'm gonna have to get two!"). And he hugged them all a lot.

Daddy was a man who could see value where others didn't. As a contractor and real estate broker for more than forty years, he was extremely good at estimating the cost of a job or the price of a piece of land. He could see how an empty pasture or some scrubby woods might become a well-drained road or a shady subdivision.

I think that vision also helps to explain Daddy's love for garage sales--and all kinds of old stuff. He really could see how IV racks might become plant hangers or how old bathtubs could make cute little fish ponds. Not all of his ideas worked, of course, but his overcrowded yard and crammed garage are testament to his belief in what was possible, with just a little effort and imagination.

Daddy was in fact a very smart, creative person. He never got the formal education he craved, but he valued it deeply. And he encouraged young people, including his children, to finish school, to go to college. He always dreamed of being able to do something substantial for St. Isidore and Redemptorist, the schools where he sent all six of his daughters.

Another dream of Daddy's was to see Devil's Swamp cleaned up. For over thirty years he pursued that dream, believing for all that time that land and water are irreplaceable and should not be carelessly or negligently destroyed. He was also a fighter, and he really couldn't stand to see that particular wrong go un-righted.

An old friend who knew him very well once said, "Dave Ewell cares about three things: good whiskey, his family, and the Catholic Church."

A great comfort and strength for Daddy and for us in those last days and hours of his life on this earth was that Catholic faith and that family that he and Mamma created.

Daddy loved a good time: he loved people and parties, he loved his family, he loved music and being outside, red pick-up trucks and cold beer. He loved so many of you. He would want us to celebrate his life.
 

BCE
June 18, 1999
Baker, Louisiana
 

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