Every now and then, you come across a person who is bigger than life.
They light up a room when they enter. They tell great stories and keep you laughing for hours.
Dale Crews was that kind of a man.
I first met Dale many years ago when I was in high school.
My brother Chris was a young radio personality at WMGO 93.1 FM in Yazoo City, a radio station that eventually became WYAB, which still exists in Flora.
Sometime in the late 90s, Dale went to work at the station as well.
You could count on Dale to search the music logs for obscure tunes for the most eccentric oldies fans.
I don’t think I ever would have heard Nervous Norvus if Dale had not gone to work at WMGO.
By the time I met Dale, he was already in his 60s. I’m proud to say he was my friend, though I haven’t seen him as much over the past few years as I would have liked.
Dale passed away in his sleep last Sunday afternoon.
A Navy vet of the Korean War, he was a world traveler, who had worked in the hospitality industry on multiple continents, including Canada and Africa.
One of the best stories he told was about the time he looked out his office window and saw his hotel landscapers frightened and not working.
He went down to check it out only to discover there was a snake in the garden.
“They were shouting something, but I could not understand them, and then an interpreter told me there was a snake,” Dale said. “I’m a country boy from Mississippi, so I went over and grabbed a hoe from one of the workers, and I walked over there and hacked the thing to death. The interpreter walked back over to me, and asked, ‘you know what that was don’t you?’ I said, ‘a snake.’ He said, ‘that was a Black Mamba.’ I kept my composure and went back to my office, but when I got there, I shook and sweated for the rest of the day.”
Dale never told the same story twice, and that was one of the best things about visiting with him.
And if you were going to have a party, you wanted Dale to be there.
During my college years, I attended Halloween and New Year’s parties at Alley Cat’s in Canton, and Dale would always be there.
The whole room would erupt in applause when he walked into the place.
He would immediately begin dancing, with his unopened bottle of wine still in hand.
Dale partied, danced, told stories, managed a hotel and spun records well into his 70s.
The thing that amazed me about Dale is that he always wanted to hear my stories. He thought my misadventures were funnier than his.
The last time I got to visit with him, he was showing the worst symptoms of COPD.
The effects of puffing all those cigarettes over the years had started to get to him.
Chris and I went over to his house, and we told each other stories for a good three hours.
“You guys have got to come back soon,” he said, as we got ready to leave. “We’ll tell some more stories and watch some John Wayne movies.”
That visit never did happen, and I regret that.
This week, I’ll sip a little wine and play Transfusion by Nervous Norvus. I don’t make it a habit of doing either very often, but I’ll do it this once for Dale.
