Sonny Ragsdale

A really outstanding Thanksgiving weekend was diminished when we got home to find an email telling me that my uncle Sonny Ragsdale had died this morning.

I’d guess he was my favorite uncle.

Sonny was half Indian, an Oklahoma Highway Patrol Trooper, and later a game warden. He led a long and interesting life, and was married to my Aunt Barbara for something like 60 years.

He had quite a few adventures in his career. I remember the time he pulled over what he thought was a drunk driver who was weaving down the road. The guy pulled a gun, but Sonny calmly disarmed him and hauled him into jail. He said that he was never particularly worried until he learned that the “drunk” was an escaped mental patient who had killed two Arizona troopers the day before.

Shortly after they were married, we visited them in their first home, an apartment in Sallisaw, Oklahoma. I was about eight or nine years old, probably making a real nuisance of myself, and Sonny handcuffed me to the kitchen door. As soon as he left the room, I took out my pocket knife and unscrewed the doorknob. It made him mad as Hell at the time, but he told that story just about every time I saw him after that.