Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to mourn the loss of Walton Bruntingthorpe from our everyday lives and to rejoice in the fact that he will always be among us in spirit—particularly in any room where someone has left a drink unattended or a punchline insufficiently delivered. And we grieve with the Bruntingthorpe family and offer them our love and strength and several dozen casseroles.
We take solace in the open bar down at the corner tabernacle, for that is how Walton wanted it, as he told us so stridently on many occasions—once, in fact, while standing on a billiards table, wearing a colander as a hat, and declaring himself “Minister of...” some mumbled phrase no one could quite hear before he toppled into a mop bucket.
While it is true Walton loved a good tipple and a good joke, he more so loved sharing these with his beloved family who survive him—his devoted wife, Snetti; his sisters, Maypole Bruntingthorpe and Junebug Brockleby; her husband, Thornton Brockleby; and their son Todd, who once attempted to out-toast Walton and has reportedly not fully recovered. Also his cousin Treatie Partridge and her spouse, Elonga Flinch, both of whom Walton once convinced to enter a three-legged race that lasted, by some accounts, three days and ended in a small parade.
And who among us could forget the Great Marmalade Incident? It was a Tuesday, though Walton insisted it felt like a “Saturday in disguise,” when he attempted to demonstrate the “universal binding properties of citrus preserves” by affixing, with alarming confidence, a teacup, a hat, and briefly, a small garden statue, to the side of a passing delivery cart. When questioned, he simply nodded sagely and said, “Science is just curiosity with better shoes.”
Yes, Walton was a man of vision, of vigor, and of very questionable methodology. A man who could turn a quiet afternoon into a minor legend and a minor inconvenience into a full-blown festivity.
And now, to quote Walton himself, as he once shouted while being gently escorted out of a library for “excessive enthusiasm,” “Quit prattling and start dancing!” Amen.
We take solace in the open bar down at the corner tabernacle, for that is how Walton wanted it, as he told us so stridently on many occasions—once, in fact, while standing on a billiards table, wearing a colander as a hat, and declaring himself “Minister of...” some mumbled phrase no one could quite hear before he toppled into a mop bucket.
While it is true Walton loved a good tipple and a good joke, he more so loved sharing these with his beloved family who survive him—his devoted wife, Snetti; his sisters, Maypole Bruntingthorpe and Junebug Brockleby; her husband, Thornton Brockleby; and their son Todd, who once attempted to out-toast Walton and has reportedly not fully recovered. Also his cousin Treatie Partridge and her spouse, Elonga Flinch, both of whom Walton once convinced to enter a three-legged race that lasted, by some accounts, three days and ended in a small parade.
And who among us could forget the Great Marmalade Incident? It was a Tuesday, though Walton insisted it felt like a “Saturday in disguise,” when he attempted to demonstrate the “universal binding properties of citrus preserves” by affixing, with alarming confidence, a teacup, a hat, and briefly, a small garden statue, to the side of a passing delivery cart. When questioned, he simply nodded sagely and said, “Science is just curiosity with better shoes.”
Yes, Walton was a man of vision, of vigor, and of very questionable methodology. A man who could turn a quiet afternoon into a minor legend and a minor inconvenience into a full-blown festivity.
And now, to quote Walton himself, as he once shouted while being gently escorted out of a library for “excessive enthusiasm,” “Quit prattling and start dancing!” Amen.