LINK'S EULOGY Link died Friday, August 31, 2001, about 5PM from multiple myeloma, a form of bone cancer that was caused by his exposure to Agent Orange in Vietnam in 1964-65. He fought the disease for two years. Link was born February 12, 1945 in Memphis, Tennessee. His mother was Jewel Key Lamkins, age 20, and his father was Herbert Lamkins, age 25, who was in northern France at the time with Patton’s Third Army chasing the nazi army toward the Rhine River. After Dad returned from overseas in October, 1945, the family settled in Malvern and bought a home at 607 Short Street which later became Harris Street. In 1962, when he was 17, Link enlisted in the U.S. Navy. After boot camp at Long Beach, California, he was stationed at Concord, California. By 1964 he was enroute to SE Asia aboard the USS Ernest G. Small. In May, 1964 the ship stopped at Pearl Harbor and Link had a reunion with his older brother Jake who was stationed at Hickam AFB. They hadn’t seen each other in 3 years. The next year he was in Japan, Hong Kong, and Vietnam with his ship. By the end of 1966 Link was out of the Navy and lived in Fayetteville, Malvern & El Dorado. In 1968 he left for Sacramento which became his home off and on for many years. Link spent the Summer of 1970 in Jackson, Wyoming with his older brother Jake. He drove in from Sacramento and Jake from St. Louis. They met on the highway by accident about 100 miles south of Jackson. The summer was spent in a one room log cabin at Kelly while Link worked as a lumberjack and his brother at the airport. Link returned to Sacramento afterwards where he continued his karate training until he had a black belt in it. He was the manager of several night clubs and restaurants in Sacramento. During this period he injured his back in a karate match which troubled him a long time. In 1974 Link had returned to Arkansas to live. He alternated between El Dorado where Dad was, Malvern where Mother was and Fayetteville where Jake lived. His back caused him many problems then. He started his own restaurant business in El Dorado and worked as a chef at the Holiday Inn in Fayetteville. Link went "Kojak" for several years after an attempt to dye his hair caused it to turn bright orange. He shaved it off and kept it that way for about 2 years. Link had grown his hair back by 1980 and got married to Joyce that year at age 35. He was living in El Dorado and working as a carpenter and cabinet-maker. A few years later the marriage ended and Link decided to fulfill a lifelong ambition to be a big game hunter. He answered an ad in a magazine and went to McCall, Idaho where he spent several years leading parties into the wilderness on horses & mules for hunting expeditions. Link left Sacramento again in 1984 determined to see more of the country, especially the Northeast, that he had missed in previous travels. He ended up around Boston and spent time there working as a bartender, carpenter and bouncer while he looked over all those "little states". By 1986 he was back in Sacramento learning the locksmith trade and looking around for a small town with no locksmith. He started making tentative plams to return to Malvern in 1990 and by 1992 had settled down for good - pretty much where he started - in Malvern and running his own business. He stayed there the rest of his life getting re-acquainted with childhood friends and family, helping out at the law enforcement agencies, joining some of the veterans groups and building up his locksmith business. He met Tracy on the internet and drove to Ohio to meet her. She returned to Malvern with him and they were married on May 1, 2000. She cared for him after he became ill with a devotion that has impressed the entire family. Words cannot tell our gratitude for the way she made Link’s last two years as comfortable and happy as possible. Neither words nor photos can convey the life Link led. He met people easily, had many friends, lived many adventures, traveled extensively and never really settled down until he returned to Malvern to start his locksmith business. He said he had "lived all his fantasies" and if he lived to an old age he would have his memories to comfort him. Maybe he subconsciously knew he would be denied the ordinary span of life so he crammed as much as he could into an extraordinary life. Since he and Tracy wanted me to do a eulogy I thought I would put this remembrance together and make few remarks about our life together. I knew him longer than any living person: 56 years, 6 months, 2 weeks, and 5 days. It was a privilege to be his brother and friend. I shall never forget him. LINK STORIES: The Easter Bunny’s Tail Link, younger brother Richard and I got easter bunnies one year about 1950. They were the kind that were colored with food dye for Easter. We played with them a great deal and wondered why they didn’t bark like a dog or meow like a cat. Link finally discovered that if he twisted his bunny’s tail it would emit a high pitched squeal. We were excited about this so I twisted my bunny’s tail and it let out a squeal too. Then Richard twisted his bunny’s tail and it let out an even louder squeal but immediately afterwards Richard was squalling loudest of all as he waved the bunny’s tail at us. It had come off in his hand. He was quite upset about it and, of course, Link got the blame. His Tarzan Outfit Tarzan was a great favorite of Link’s. He read the books, watched his movies, and played like he was Tarzan as we climbed in the trees behind our house. I remember in the early 1950s when Link took an old pair of cut-off blue jeans, cut the crotch out of them, and made a loincloth out of them to wear while he played Tarzan. He even had a jungle knife he had carved out of a dynamite box from National lead. Those boxes were free for the taking back then and we made all sorts of things from the pine used to construct them. Link & I were climbing a tree to meet a band of chimpanzees in our playacting. He was just above me when I looked up and was astonished to see he had nothing on under his loincloth! Link’s Origin In 1959 Link and I lived in Memphis. He was 14 and I was 16. Neither of us much cared for our real names so we were always trying on nicknames. We were watching the Sid Caesar that night when Sid and the Gordon Hathaway character did a skit poking fun at Marlon Brando type Hell’s Angels motorcycle gangs. Sid’s character was called Link Chain and the other was Skid Chain. We decided to call each other by those nicknames. Mine didn’t stick but Link made sure his did. We would only answer if you used the name Link. It worked with most folks except Mother and Dad. They never bought that program. The Holiday Inn Chef Around 1974 Link was in Fayetteville looking for work. The only ad in the paper that looked promising was for a chef at the Holiday Inn. Link was a typical batchelor and could hardly boil water without burning it. He decided to apply for the job. I told him he was crazy. He replied he could do anything if he set his mind to it. He went in and applied for the job, told them he was an experienced chef, got a tour on the kitchen and was told to start the next morning at 4am. I asked him that evening how was he going to handle it. He said, "When I was looking around the kitchen, I saw a big thick cookbook and I’ll use that." And so he did and within weeks the Holiday Inn was so happy with him he was doing banquets and dinners for hundreds of folks. I still found it hard to believe. He said, "You just have to measure bigger - instead of teaspoons I use gallons!" A Skunk & Two Dogs Link always liked animals and usally had a dog when his living quarters allowed it. For several years in the mid 1970s he owned and trained a big 125 pound German Shepard named Bear. He was a beauty and answered many commands. The trouble started when Link got another dog, a huge Alaskan Malamute husky. The two dogs hated each other and fought constantly. It didn’t take Link long to lose his patience with the situation. At this time he lived up the road from me in a rural area outside Fayetteville. He was watching TV when the dogs started making a racket in the carport. Man! That got him hot! He jumped up, ran to the carport door and jerked it open - ready to whip the dogs’ butts for fighting again. But they weren’t fighting; they had cornered a skunk at the door and when Link jerked the door open the skunk ran between his legs into the house with both dogs hot on its trail. Link was nearly knocked over and bedlam took over as Link chased after them. The skunk was squirting the whole way. Finally the skunk was killed under Link’s bed. The house was a wreck and you couldn’t believe the stench. Link’s girlfriend arrived home from work but refused to come into the house or let Link near her. Link had heard that tomato juice would take the stink off so he asked Susie to go buy 2 cases of it. He filled up a bathtub with the juice and soaked in it several hours. Link said, "The only damned thing that tomato juice did was turn me into a red prune that still stunk to high heaven." I didn’t visit him for several weeks but tactfully kept in touch by phone. The Electric Fence Around the same time as the skunk adventure I was having trouble with a neighbor because his horses kept getting loose from their pasture, getting in my yard and eating my new fruit trees and other things I had planted for landscaping. The neighbor had just promised to put an electric fence around the pasture. Link and I were returning from Fayetteville from an evening of camaraderie and a few brews. It was raining hard and as I drove home I told him about the neighbor saying he would put up an electric fence. Link insisted the man was lying and as we drove by the pasture he said, "Stop the truck, Jake, and I’ll show you what a liar he is!" I stopped - Link leaped out into the rain and ran over to the fence where he grabbed a strand of wire. MY GOD! The sparks flew and Link was flopping around like some monster fish and couldn’t turn loose of the fence. I knew if I grabbed him I’d be flopping around with him in the rain too. So I ran over and kicked him loose. He was mad at me for awhile because I kicked him. I, of course, told him and everybody else how I probably saved his life. Kojak Link Link started getting gray headed early like me and the rest of his brothers did. By the time he was in his early 30s and living in El Dorado he decided he wasn’t going to put up with it anymore. So he found a hairdresser and had his hair dyed black. WOW! He told me he looked 20 years younger so he went out partying that night and had a great time. Next morning when he awoke his hair was bright orange! Enraged, he returned to the hairdresser and threatened him with bodily harm if he didn’t fix the problem. Scared to death the fellow re-dyed Link’s hair with the same result. The scene of the previous night was repeated - Link went partying, all the ladies told him how great he looked and he had a wonderful time. Next morning the orange hair was back and Link went a little crazy trying to cut it off with scissors. He botched the job, wounded himself a few times and finally just got in the bathtub where he lathered up his head and shaved his it clean. The "Kojak" TV series with Telly Savalas was poular then so for several years Link sported the shaven head look. Dad Plays A Trick Link managed a lot of restaurants and nightclubs over the years. Around 1980 he was running a club in Bossier City, Louisiana and Dad, who lived not far away in El Dorado, had told him that someday he was going to come in that club dressed so Link wouldn’t recognize him. Dad and his wife bought wigs, got disguised real good and paid Link a visit. It was dark inside when they entered and Link greeted them. He didn’t recognize either of them and asked if they wanted a booth. They replied yes so Link led them to a booth and said a waitress would be with them shortly to take their order. Dad asked, "Why can’t you take our order?" Link said that wasn’t his job and the waitress would take it. Dad then strongly stated, "I want you to take our order - I don’t want to wait for the waitress!" Link, still not recognizing them, stood real straight, got pumped up and in a loud voice said, "Now look here mister..." at which time Dad and Pat broke up laughing and Link realized his old dad had pulled one over on him. Jake Lamkins (9-02-01) Delivered at Link's funeral service on 9-5-01 Richard Taft, Link's lifetime friend, also delivered a eulogy. We don't have the text of it yet. Several folks asked about the notebook Jake made for Tracy which included the eulogy and photos. Jake has made up a remembrance for Link in the form of a newsletter which includes the photos and eulogy plus Link's obituary and the e-mail from Dr. Zent. It's 12 pages long. If you would like a copy, just e-mail Jake@LAMKINS.com with your postal address & we'll send you one.