December 14, 2001

DOG CROSSING -- It wasn't easy to remember the first time you met Ed McHargue because he made you feel as if you had always known him.

He was the kind of neighbor who came running when you needed help and dropped by to check on you even when you didn't. He wasn't being nosey, just neighborly.

Folks claimed he had a dry sense of humor, even on the wettest days. He loved to compare rain gauges. If you had more drops than he did, he would scratch his head and wonder how the rain could have missed his house.

"He was everybody's friend,'' said a neighbor, Cindy McInvale. "He had a heart as big as the world.''

When folks die in the big city, the population figures barely move.

But, when somebody dies in Dog Crossing, the whole place seems to lose its collective breath. That's because only about two dozen folks, and a couple of dozen dogs, live at this Upson County crossroads.

Mr. Ed didn't just live in Dog Crossing.

In many ways, he was Dog Crossing.

He was the town historian, caretaker and ambassador. If the place had a mayor, he would have been elected in a landslide along Rocky Bottom Road.

At age 80, he still worked with his son, Roy, in the cabinet shop across the road from his house. In the evenings, he would retire to his front porch swing of the home where he grew up. He knew just about every car and truck that would come around the curve from Mud Bridge.

They would honk, and he would wave. That's the way his world worked.

They laid Mr. Ed to rest Thursday afternoon in the drizzle at Mount Zion Baptist cemetery. A line of cars followed the black hearse down Rocky Bottom, carrying him past his front porch one last time.

On Monday, he had taken his daughter, Earlene, to the doctor in Thomaston, and his own heart gave out right there at the hospital.

Above his casket in the chapel at Coggins Funeral Home, they placed his hammer, his saw and his measuring tape.

"With Mr. Ed, it was always: Measure twice, cut once,'' said Kenny Coggins.

A year ago, I wrote a column about Dog Crossing and other tiny Georgia communities with interesting names.

I had never been to Dog Crossing, and I admitted I wasn't sure I would even know it when I got there.

That same morning, I got a call from Ed McHargue. He had been at the post office over at The Rock and heard folks talking about the story.

He invited me over for a wonderful history lesson. According to his daddy, John Henry McHargue, a mule wagon once ran over a dog crossing the road, hence the name.

In response to my column, residents Tommy and Cindy McInvale put up a sign: "DOG CROSSING."

A few months later, I went for a visit. I had my picture taken kneeling at the sign with Mr. Ed and a basset hound named Buster.

Mr. Ed would have been 81 years old on Jan. 4. After his funeral Thursday, the McInvales said they now plan to place another sign beneath the big letters: Dog Crossing.

It will say: In Memory of Ed McHargue. 1921-2001.

(From the book, "Smack Dab in Dog Crossing,'' by Ed Grisamore. Reprinted with permission from The Macon Telegraph.)