Greencastle residents will say goodbye to a familiar face today.

Terry Dale, longtime employee and superintendent of the Greencastle Water Department, died on Friday after a battle with cancer.

I just wanted to say how much I enjoyed getting to know Terry during the last four-and-a-half years that I have worked at the BannerGraphic and that I'm really going to miss him.

Terry was Terry. That's about all I can say to describe him. He had a serious exterior, but I think inside he was a caring and thoughtful person.

I don't know why he seemed to like me. All I did was ask stupid questions about water treatment and he always had to explain things to me at least twice. Sometimes he would get a tiny bit impatient, but it didn't upset me.

I kind of looked at Terry not like a father figure (I have a wonderful father) but as if I was talking to my father. Although he never did it, he could have made me cower if he wanted to.

But despite his serious appearance, I think Terry was a caring person who was a teacher at heart. He always said, "Adam, when are you gonna come down to the plant and let me give you a tour?"

I always told him I was busy and would get it done sometime. I wasn't lying. I really did want to go.

I was saddened Friday upon hearing the news of his death because I knew that I would never be able to go to the plant and have Terry show me around.

When I think back to the Board of Works meetings, where I sat in the audience and watched Terry up front with the board members, I laugh to myself. When the board members were going back and forth over figures or other mind-numbing details about a project, Terry would rest his head against the back of his chair and close his eyes, patiently waiting for his turn to give a report at the end of the meeting.

I always wondered if he was sleeping, but I can't say for sure that he was. Maybe Laurie Hardwick heard him snoring next to her.

Something else I'll always remember, and appreciate about Terry, is seeing him at the City Council meetings. After giving his department report to the council and stepping away from the podium, he would walk past me in the audience and pat me on the shoulder or crack a joke. I'm really going to miss that.

Soon after I learned about Terry's illness -- I think in the spring -- I spoke to him and expected that he would be worried and discouraged about his illness. But he wasn't.

Terry didn't seem worried at all. He had a plan to fight the cancer. He told me he was going to make his own remedy to kill the cancer cells in his body.

Whether he did that or not, I don't know. It was the fact that he wasn't ready to throw in the towel that was important. He didn't want to give up.

Terry was determined to fight and I think that's just what he did. Even after he started to lose weight and his complexion became poor, you didn't hear Terry complaining or moping around wanting people to feel sorry for him. It appeared to me that Terry kept working to the very end.

I think there are lessons to be learned from men like this.

-- So long Terry.