Best friend and fighting siblings. Cranfield McGovern was born December 23, 1936. I was born October 26, 1936 so I was just about two months older than he. We were in the same grade and were great friends. We sometimes got into scuffles but quickly made up. We sometimes would walk with our arms around each other’s neck like little girls might do. My brother Leroy and my sister Wanda would fight with his brother Bruce and his sister Debora. They were older than Cranfield and me. This fighting was often after school on the way home. If I missed a fight he would tell me and I would tell him about the fight he missed. The fact that our brothers and sisters fought did not affect our friendship. One Friday, Cranfield woke up in the middle of the night and asked his older brother for a drink of water. His brother went to get the water and the bucket was empty so his brother went to the spring and got a bucket of water to give him a drink. He went back to sleep and woke up in Heaven. That was on February 9, 1946. He had not been sick so it was not known what caused his death. That was the first time that death touched me up close and personally. Sixty-seven years later I can still remember seeing his freckled face lying in his coffin.