That’s kind of the way I’ve been headlining these posts.

Sometimes I stare at this screen and don’t know what to say. Or, how to say it. So I just type.

I know the topic: Steve Harris died on Friday. Steve was a pillar of Downtown Brownwood, one of the OGs you might say. Steve was undergoing cancer treatment in Austin when he passed away at the age of 63. Those are the facts.

I say that Steve Harris was one of the pillars of downtown. He and the other Steve opened Steves’ Market and Deli back in 1996, so they’ve been downtown for parts of four decades. They were here when downtown… really wasn’t. They were here long before revitalization. Steves’ Market and Deli, along with the Turtle, were the seedbed of revitalization. They were the fertile earth. Anyway, it seems like only a week ago I found it out that Steve was sick.

And I didn’t even really know him. Not really.

Interestingly, the few conversations or messages I ever exchanged with Steve were after the death of several downtown notables. He commented after I wrote about the death of my friend Shufflin’ Ray from the Brownwood Manor. He thanked me for being Ray’s friend and for trying to take care of him. Then again we chatted briefly after the death of Trenton Ray. Steve gave me information and links concerning Trenton’s death and told me about Trenton’s work, help, and advocacy for the Greenleaf Cemetery, which was one of Steve’s causes.

We saw each other downtown occasionally. Not often. A wave and a smile. Strangely enough (and most people won’t believe this about me, particularly,) but Steve and I seemed to have this in common… we really didn’t get out very much. Whenever Danielle and I went into the Deli, we saw Steve Puckett and rarely Steve Harris. Walking around downtown, we’d always see Puckett. Harris was really the back-of-the-house-guy in the restaurant. The other Steve took our orders and chatted with us. Likewise, I don’t leave the apartment much. People think that I’m an outgoing extrovert, but I’m not. I rarely go to the bank, store, or on “errands.” People see Danielle way more than they see me. And that’s kind of how I thought about Steve Harris.

If you were driving across a desert, wind whistling across sands and scrub, you might think “Nothing much ever happened here,” but you’d be wrong. Then, say, you came across an impact crater where I fiery space luminary made a stunning mark. You would see it and say, “Wow, something very important happened here.” I’ve learned more about Steve Harris by his impact, by what he’s left behind.

Starting yesterday, I began to see the memorials flooding my social media. People who I know and respect, who knew Harris well, much better than I did, were mourning the loss of their friend. Over the poker table during one of our downtown games, I was asked if I was going to write something about Steve. “I will,” I said. One of my friends said, “You should. You’re a better writer than a poker player.”

The two Steves were co-owners of Steves’ Market and Deli. The first time I ever walked around downtown, I remember seeing the sign and thinking “That’s a weird place to put the apostrophe.” But then I learned that Steves’ was plural AND possessive! And now I’m hearing that because of the loss of Harris, Steves’ will shut its doors. What an impactful loss to our community!

And it’s not just the restaurant. Steve Harris was a mighty advocate for downtown revitalization. Store owners waxed eloquent about Steve Harris’s support and advocacy. Steve supported historical literacy, care, and preservation for all of his life. He wanted downtown to grow and prosper while maintaining its unique historical identity. He knew you couldn’t progress and advance by tearing down the past. It was for this reason, a reverence for history and the lives that informed history, that the Steves worked and advocated for the preservation of downtown buildings, and took on themselves the hard work of trying to save and preserve the Greenleaf Cemetery. One of the memorials said this:

“His passion for preserving history continued in 2017, when he and Puckett became involved with the Greenleaf Cemetery Association. Harris was quickly appointed president of the GCA, and his goal was to steer the cemetery out of dire financial straights to viability for the future. He would lead the GCA to organize and host events to show and celebrate the people that make up the fabric of Brown County. Under his leadership, Greenleaf Cemetery underwent many improvements including a house received from the City of Brownwood which is used as the new Visitors Center.”

That’s the kind of impact that will change and improve a community.

I’ve spent much of this morning reading the memorials and eulogies for Steve Harris, and by them (the impacts) I can see that someone special has passed from among us. I wish I’d known him better.

After I wrote pieces in the Brownwood News about the deaths of Shufflin’ Ray and young Trenton, Steve let me know that he noticed the losses. That he was impacted by their lives, and that he cared that people would know that they had passed.

I feel the same way about Steve Harris. I didn’t know you, Steve. But I know you now by the impact you’ve had on your community and all the lives you touched.

I wish I’d known you better.

(*Hey… take the time to visit the GoFundMe linked here and help out as much as you can!)

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Michael Bunker is a local columnist for BrownwoodNews.com whose columns appear on Wednesdays and Sundays on the website.