I worked with Henry at Weyerhaeuser for many years. I was the accountant in the office. . I admired and respected the men and women who worked in the plant because they were hard-working, solid, family people with good values, for the most part. However, they were a little skeptical of me at first. Because I was from Brooklyn, and truly what they called a "Yankee", sometimes there was a little trouble in the translation, so to speak. Henry, though, accepted me as a friend, and we worked well together with production numbers and payroll approvals and so on. I kept a notebook where I would write down phrases I did not understand that I heard from the plant personell. Henry would then explain and interpret them for me, and then I would write my own definition next to the phrase, so I could look it up the next time I heard it. . Some of the ones that baffled me at first were like "fine as frog's hahr" or "mad as a wahld hoag". Darn, we had fun! Henry and I had our own version of the now-famous "hillbilly dictionary" long before it was a thing. After a while, the other hard-working men and women in the plant got to know me and came to accept me, but not before Henry Nesbit became my friend. I will never, ever forget Henry's kindness. Rest in peace, dear Henry. There's a hole in the bucket, my friend.
Toni Ciraci
