There is a custom of never speaking ill of the dead.  I was taught that as a young child and it’s puzzled me ever since.  It’s always seemed to me some people didn’t deserve being spoken well of, even if one could find something.

I had an uncle by marriage who was a mean SOB.  As a kid I worked parts of summers for him.  That guy was a thief, would go “hunting” and take things he found when hunters left their camps.  He stole from the customers of his business.  He was physically abusive to his wife and kids, nothing was done about it in those days.   A large man, 6’5″, at one point he was physically threatening me.  I walked away, and he was too drunk to follow.  Alcoholic, he dropped dead in the kitchen of his mistress.

I refused to talk at his funeral, even though asked by his widow.  He was an asshole, and dying did not make him a saint.

I had a brother-in-law who was rumored to molest his children.  And then one of mine said that this brother-in-law was waiting for her to come home from school.  There was a window before my wife got home.  I talked with her and she admitted to being molested by him, briefly.  She said she stopped going home until her mother got there.

Those were different days.  I didn’t know what to do, what I could do, or what was reasonable.  Jail for him would have meant poverty for his family.  My wife wasn’t much help, either.  At that point they were her kids.

I finally went to him with the truth.  I arranged to meet him alone, and told him what I knew.  He denied it.  I told him the truth, that if anything happened again I didn’t know if I could stop from killing him.  (On my limited behalf I was back from the war, drinking a lot, and pretty screwed up.  Very screwed up.  I don’t know what I would have done.  I might have even dragged him off to a psychiatrist.)

He stayed away from our house and my family.  My sister-in-law wondered why and I encouraged my wife to talk to her sister.  She did, and then it came out that the guy had molested every small child in the family.  At that point I thought I had made my point, protected my kids and I was done.

Alcoholic, he died.  I didn’t go to the funeral or service.  I didn’t have anything nice to say, and I didn’t want to watch those who did go on about him.

I feel the same way about Scalia, the pawn of the wealthy, the powerful, money, who ruled at the expense of the poor.  Very little regard for humanity.  I just can’t believe that dead he suddenly found redemption on this Earth.  He’s going to have to deal with his God, and if he doesn’t rot in Hell that isn’t much of a God.