Don't Speak Poorly Of The Dead

I wonder who made up the saying, "don't speak poorly of the dead"; probably a very, very good-hearted do gooder. It could have been someone talking about Methusala. After all, he outlived bunches of Bedouins so when he 'bought the desert" there was a decent chance he'd po'd scads of people.
Senator Robert Byrd(D-WV) died yesterday. Y'all knew that, didn't you. I wrote 'y'all' because he was a 'West By God Virginian'. It's my tribute to him.
I remember the first time I was in the State. It was March of 1989. My flight landed at Chuck Yeager Field. It's located on top of a mountain, just outside Charleston. I was tentative about going there; Hicksville and all that. In my new job I was seeing landscape I'd only read about. Heck, I'd only been east of Illinois three, maybe four times. I called my boss in Illinois as soon as the plane landed and I could reach a phone. I think he was kidding but he asked me if the people were wearing shoes and if all the girls were named Daisy Mae.
The purpose of the trip was to interview potential distributors for my company and I had to travel from Charleston to Wheeling; a three hour drive. Here's what stuck with me: Interstates were cut through mountains, not huge ones, but high enough to get my attention. Secondly, I was amazed at the number of Robert Byrd buildings, highways, bridges, sewer management facilities, you name it and I saw. Build it and he will come didn't start with a baseball field of dreams in northeast Iowa. It was in West Virginia. Simply stated, Robert Byrd could bring home the pork and he did.
I've been reading obits from our country's so-called major newspapers detailing the life of the great senator and I haven't seen one remark about his being a former member of the Ku Klux Klan. Not one! It's not the same as when Strom Thurmond passed away. The MSM couldn't let us forget that Thurmond was once a die-hard segregationist. You don't suppose because Thurmond switched from Democrat to Republican it had anything to do with this 'omission', do you? Not Mr. Byrd, though. He'll be remembered for carrying a copy of the Constitution in his vest pocket.
This is what I remember about Byrd in addition to having every building in WV named after him. It took place on Fox TV in March of 2001 and the interviewer was the marvelous now deceased, Tony Snow. Snow asked Byrd how things have changed in regard to race relations. The answer:'We still have 'white niggers'. Twice he repeated the phrase. Some attitudes are difficult to throw by the side of the road. I suspect Byrd might have regretted what he said but he did say it and it stuck with me even though he later apologized. "Hypocrite, I thought".
I believe this is a good spot to end this post. I don't want to speak(too)poorly of the dead.
Robert Byrd R.I.P.