Rod Creagh

Rod Creagh

With deep sadness topped off with many fond memories, I bid farewell to my old friend and brother-in-law, Rod Creagh.

Rod was a truly great man. Professionally he was an oral surgeon of extraordinary skill. From the mundane (he extracted all of my wisdom teeth) to the heroic (repairing the obliterated lower face of a pretty UGA coed to like-new), he never turned away a patient. Farm-to-table gifts were not uncommon, in lieu of cash.

Rod was also a musician. He organized a "garage" blue-grass band, “True Grass”, in Athens, he wrote songs (one of which, famously, was recorded by both the CW singer Mickey Gilley and the jazzman Mose Allison), and after retirement he formed "3-Wire Music", a music publishing company, in Nashville. Many wonderful family evenings have been spent listening, chatting, and singing along with Rod.

The phrase "3-wire" comes from his days as a US Navy fighter pilot. Four arresting cables, or "wires", are on the flight deck to snag the tail hook on a plane as it lands, the third being the optimal wire. Rod once had the third wire rip the tail hook and lower fuel drain system out of his F4D Skyray, sending the plane off the front of the USS Shangri-La. He ejected just in time.

I have had many wonderful travels with Rod. We rode several TOSRV-Souths together, and even a couple of the TOSRV Tuneups many of us did back in the day. We did Mt. Mitchell a few times and the 6-Gap more than I can tally. We rode several week-long bicycle tours, including Ride Across Arizona (twice) and Peddle the Peaks in New Mexico and Colorado. We competed together in whitewater canoe races on the Nantahala and spent a week bringing a yacht from Cincinnati to Mobile (via the Ohio, Cumberland, Tennessee, Tombigbie, Black Warrior, and Alabama rivers, using the Tenn-Tom waterway to get over the divide from Lake Pickwick to the Tombigbie).

Rod was always there to help and believed in going out of his way for family and friendships. While my Mom was living with us, Rod made it a ritual to visit and go out with us for "Tex-Mex", one of Mom's favorites. (Well, that and the Margueritas.)

The passing of great friends like Rod leaves holes in life that cannot be filled. We can only cover them with steel and live the new, diminished version.

Fare well my friend.