Lamar Keck

Beaver Motor Coach Annual Convention
Moultrie, Georgia


Lamar Keck.

This is my favorite name ever. I keep saying it over and over in my mind. Lamar Keck. Mr. Lamar Keck. Mr. Keck. Lamar. La Mar. Keck.

Lamar Keck owns a Beaver Motor Coach, the same as I do, and he is presently attending the Beaver Rally here in Moultrie Georgia, as I am. I was familiar with Lamar from his writing for the Beaver Journal. While I am a newbie, Lamar is a long-time member and past President of the Beaver Ambassadors Club, which is holding this rally.

I have a bolo tie with my leather Beaver name tag, a First-Timer Ribbon and one little leather extension for this "Music & Memories 2009" Rally, while Lamar has so many rallies attached to his name tag, he has tied them up with string so as not to trip over them. I'm not kidding.

Oh yes, we are a social little group, we Beaver owners are. Seventy-nine of us, parked in an airfield in Southern Georgia, side by side, from every part of the country. And with the exception of yours truly and our next-door neighbor from Los Angeles, no one here is from the big city.

Which kind of explains Lamar Keck. What an interesting name. What is its provenance, I wonder? Was there a Lamar Keck Senior. And a grandpa Lamar? And before him, great grandpappy Lamar? There had to be, don’t you think? You just don’t get to be Lamar Keck without some sort of bloodline originating back in the way-back of time.

Lamar Keck. Why do I love this name so? I love the L of it. The M and R of it. The way it rolls off your tongue and slides right into that stone wall of a last name.

Keck. When it’s over, it’s over. Don’t let’s even discuss it. That name finishes your sentence. Maybe your whole paragraph. Nothing left to be said, no sirree. Once you’ve closed that last K, you’ve finished and let’s get on with business.

Lamar Keck doesn’t come from Brooklyn either, that much you may have intuited. He’s from Branson, Missouri. A handsome gent of a certain age, his most striking feature is his head full of that Keck wavy white hair. Lamar will take that mop to his grave and look damn fine in his casket, that’s for sure.

He is not a musician, he assures me, but he is one heck of a soundman, and did a fine job the other night when the high school jazz band entertained, despite a tricky microphone that threatened to turn the evening into an acoustic nightmare.

Similarly, when the Four Aces, the pre-rock and roll group from the 50’s (Three Coins in the Fountain) whose collective age is somewhere around 300 years old, performed, Lamar was right there giving them the sound and the power to belt it out like they did 50 years ago. Amazing.

So here’s to my new friend and latest name-crush. You can keep your Mistys, your Latoyas and your Kanye’s. As fun as they are to pronounce, they do not come close to the joy of Lamar Keck.

I defy you to say it just once.








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