Sometimes I feel the urge to write a story about somebody from LaGrange, somebody who touched my life or - in the case of our good friend Coca Cola Mike - did something that took a minute or two off my life (such as the time he took me airborne in his little MG as we topped a hill on Azalea Drive).

Today’s story isn’t about Coca-cola Mike, but it is about an old LaGrange friend.

In my wallet, scribbled on a tiny piece of paper, barely legible and very brief, are some notes. While home in LaGrange some years ago, I sat down and talked with this amazing man and listened to his story.

You’ll remember him as Mr. Gilbert Holliday.

Gil had been coming to the Y playing at noon for a few decades, even up into his 80s. But age and ailments had put him into at least a temporary retirement, so he’d come and sit on the sideline and visit. I was privileged to sit alongside him for a good long time in the early days of 2001, and he told me his story.

My recollection of the facts is sketchy - just like my notes - so I can’t tell you the whole story. I don’t need to, but I hope some of Gil’s folks will write me and remind me of all the missing details.

But I have the most important one:

Her name was Julia.

That name must have sounded like the singing of angels to ol’ Gil. I could tell it did by the little gleam in his eye when he talked of her. When they married, he said, they owned a 1925 T-model Ford.

“Looked gorgeous to me,” Gil said. That much I wrote down on my scribbly notes. I’m just not sure whether he was talking about Julia or the Ford. I think both.

Julia was his life, but he was pretty crazy about that T-model, too. He got to talking about it with a smile, telling me about how he and Julia were driving along one time - maybe it was on their honeymoon or maybe they were just courting at the time - and the creek flooded and covered the railroad tracks and stranded the two lovebirds.

Not that it bothered Gil to be stranded with that girl, because it didn’t. I could tell by the gleam in his eye and the crack in his voice and by a glow of memories and eternal love in his face.

Gil and Julia were married for 57 years, ‘til death parted them around 1996.

After our visit I never got to see Gil again. I had hoped to see him when I came back later that summer; but when I got to the Y and looked for him, my buddy Ken Carter told me that Gil had died, too, just a few months before.

“I think he kind of grieved ‘til he died,” Ken said.

I’m sure he did. But I bet he never lost that little gleam for Julia. Those gleams don’t go away easily.

And that’s the part I’m going to remember most about Gil.

Readers may contact Steven Bowen at steven.bowen@redoakisd.org