I became acquainted with JD about ten years ago when I rented a storage unit from him. He had a bullet casting company on the property doing forklift amounts of production until it burnt down about 7 years ago with the fire nearly reaching my unit. Over the years I would see JD every 6 months to pay him my rent. I always looked forward to this as we would sit and talk sometimes for hours at a time. He is about 90 now and has lived a very interesting life, he was even a personal friend of Elmer Keith the rancher, columnist and developer of magnum pistol cartridges. He had a bad spell with his diabetes around 6 months ago and has been in hospital (now rehab) ever since.
The only person visiting him has been his daughter who travels from Corpus and myself. His mind is bright as ever and we discuss Ford tractors, farming, canning, guns, health you name it. He is a wealth of forgotten knowledge and our recent visits have been a real blessing to me.
Just making the point there are a lot of these forgotten people that need someone to talk to, if you know of any seek them out!