Memories of Doyle

This time of year is bitter sweet for me! Auburn Tigers were awesome last year and this season they are doing well too, with one loss. My memory is full of fun times going to college football games in the fall, my first one in the late 70’s was with the most devoted Auburn fan I have ever known. Above is a picture of his car that we made it to the game in record time! Auburn vs. Tenn.! We lost, but we sure got drunk with about two dozen of our friends.

Doyle and his family have been close to mine since I was around 13 years old. He and I were always best friends and a few times closer than that. I wonder sometimes if I would have married him as we planned when I was young and moved to a ranch in Australia to raise a family if he may still be alive today. Back in 99, we traveled as friends to London, Portugal and Spain looking at real estate for him a new home. What a great trip that was spanning over a couple weeks, we drove across the whole country of Spain to Alicante on the Mediterranean Sea.

An oil company employed Doyle and working a month on and one off in Algeria, to save on taxes he ended up buying a condo on the beach in Portugal. He still would come to AL every few months but mainly during football season. He died in Portugal two years ago in June following his daughter’s graduation in May from Rhodes College, his life long dream to see that day. We had plans for me to come to Portugal that March but I had to postpone but was re-scheduling at the time. I still have all his emails and pictures. After reading Madman’s post yesterday, I decided to write about one of my several lifelong friends that have died in the last five years or so. Doyle was 53 years old and in his sleep died of a massive heart attack with no prior warning except at the graduation I heard he had to stop a moment and take a few deep breathes.
The car pictured above belonged to Doyle and is a 1967 Shelby GT 500 also featured in the movie “Gone in 60 Seconds” with Nicolas Cage. This week Auburn was Idle, next week we play Arkansas. You can be assured that each game I am thinking of Doyle, I miss him so very much.
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