When the 84-year-old succumbed to COVID-19 this summer, it shook the city to its heart, prompting senior citizens to take the pandemic more seriously than before, according to a report released Friday via the Associated Press. .
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Instead of attending the school’s best football games, the elders stayed home and put on masks.
Vanessa McKinny, who runs the nursing home Driver helped create, told the AP that Driver’s death had “devastated” the community.
“We used to take things seriously, but after that, it shook us,” he said.
Driver, in many ways, had personified in a small town.From Monday to Friday, he worked at a convention table in Clanton Town Hall.I had dinner at Green’s Small Town Diner with friends.
On Fridays, you may discover it by having lunch at the local senior center.On Wednesday and Sunday nights, the driving force worshipped in the Assembly of the Temple of God.
So when the other people in Clanton stopped seeing him in town, they knew something was wrong.COVID-19 was no longer just a disease of big cities; had come to Chilton County.
Born in Clanton in 1935, Driver graduated from the best school and began painting at 18 for the county’s engineering department, drawing the roads that locals still use today.
At this stage, the state economy was basically agricultural and many roads were not paved.Clanton’s exit from Interstate 65 is marked through a giant fishing-shaped water tower.
The driving force later joined the arson branch and was elected to clanton City Council.
After 12 years, he campaigned for mayoralty and won the first in 1984, never losing a re-election offer.
Around Father’s Day weekend, Driver began to feel unwell, no one can figure out how and where he got infected.
Hospitalized in Clanton, Driver recruited his daughter, Kim Driver Hayes, on a plan to say goodbye to his colleagues, the pastor, friends and the circle of family from the city he loved.
A short time later, he was transferred to a Birmingham hospital to have a fan put on him.
Hayes, who works as a nurse, also in poor health for a more benign case of COVID-19, and more than a dozen parents caught him, adding Driver’s younger brother, Don.
“He simply told them ‘thank you’ and enjoyed them,” he recalls.” The last thing he said to them was, “I’ll see you in heaven.Put yourselves in a position to go.”
The driving force died on July 9.
A few days later, mourners piled up for a brief cemetery service, but, as with many coronavirus deaths, the mourning process had been interrupted by the risk of the pandemic.
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Last Friday, 60 other people masked and armed with hand sanitist performed a memorial service for Driver in their midst for the elderly.
Bobby Cook, an interim councillor and mayor, remembers a guy who came here for others.
“This guy had more in mind than happened in the city than can be written in a book,” he told the participants.”He’s a fair guy.”
The Associated Press contributed to the report.