A Hero Falls
By Dave McGraw
Monday, March 01, 2004
One of the finest human beings I've ever known, Paul Nichols, was lost to me last night. He was reasoned, considerate, good humored and courageous, even as his body was wracked with a terrible sickness. He helped me to understand how to face my own mortality some day, and told me that I was much stronger than I felt. "It is not hard to be rational," Paul said, answering my unasked question about dying, "you are stronger than you think." I think none was stronger than Paul. He made me a wiser person. Paul was a great friend.
I first heard Paul's voice when he called in to a radio talk show one evening, and I instantly liked the man. There was an amazing quality of honesty and strength in his voice -- and there is wisdom in this: that quality was still there when he could barely raise his voice above a whisper. What I thought of as a physical characteristic, his deep and powerful voice, went far beyond the mere physical. Paul was a powerful spirit.
Paul had one great weakness, and he shared it with me in a few unguarded moments when we were alone. Never publicly appearing to be a "softy," Paul secretly cared a lot about people. Above all, he cared about his daughters, and although he was a man of restrained emotions, Paul's love for his girls was infinite. When he spoke of them, his expressive voice swelled with pride -- and betrayed deep concern. Paul was a loving father.
Paul Nichols was more salty than saintly, but I doubt I would have sought the company of a saint. Paul was a man who laughed easily, and he usually had me laughing as well within the first few minutes of our every meeting with one of his off-color jokes. Occasionally I would think the joke wasn't really very funny, but Paul's laugh was highly infectious, and I would chuckle politely until I saw his sense of the humor in it, and then I would often laugh until my eyes watered. Paul was a man who loved to pass on the latest joke.
What struck me most strongly about Paul was his fierce independence. At the first sign of some government bureaucrat telling him what he could or could not do, Paul's resistance was visceral! I loved him for that! In a pen full of easily herded cattle, Paul was the bull that pushed back. Thank Life that there are a few good men like Paul still in America today. We will all be shackled and numbered if the spirit of men like Paul is ever gone from our land. (In fact, Paul would forcibly observe that we are already shackled and numbered! LOL!) To me at least, Paul was a true hero.
Goodbye Paul, you who I was honored to call a friend. Thank you for sharing your wisdom, strength, love, and humor. Thank you for being a champion of individual liberty. Paul Nichols, you were a hero!