Framing Memories of Ed Calhoun

Even with reflections from the reception hall's chandeliers, this photograph is striking.  Edwin "Ed" Calhoun took the photo around twenty years ago at the finish line to the Peachtree Road Race, capturing this moment when a Marine in full gear completed a run that he'd dedicated to fallen comrades.

At a memorial service in the beautiful mountain chapel at Big Canoe, GA, the family's three heartfelt, lovingly crafted tributes to Ed, the "fun uncle" and father, dwelt on his voracious appetite for life as his motivation for capturing so much life on film, with his penchant for "framing" moments.

I've known him as jovial host to me and adoring spouse to the lady who brought me into the Walker School north of Atlanta. (Read my tribute to Nancy Calhoun, delivered at the time of her retirement.)  Ed's family agreed: while he doted on family, cultivated his friends, and made friends of strangers, his love for wife Nancy was his core, from age 16 on.  The preacher took the title of his tribute from what Ed said to Nancy after a rough patch in their lives together: "Thank you for not giving up on me."  And his family remembered Ed's answer whenever someone asked how long he had been married to Nancy:  "Not long enough."