09/02/2017
Memorial republished from Muscogee Count Medical Society Bulletin.
Thomas Andrew "Butch" Cochran, M.D.
“I wish we all could live at least until we’re ninety
Without any aches or pains, or a cloudy mind
I wish everyone could taste the kind of love they dreamed of finding
And get to see their ship come sailing in at least one time.
I’ve been here long enough to know
That ain’t the way it always goes
So If I am one of those travelers who’s journey gets cut short
And leave the ones I leave behind
Wishing I had more time
All I can say is
I can’t add more days to my life,
So I’ll add more life to my days”
Thomas Andrew "Butch" Cochran left us prematurely on July 14, 2017 in a pond, not 50 yards from his house where his wife Susan had left us on July 14, 2011. Butch had died from an accidental drowning.
Butch was the President of the Muscogee County Medical Society in 2007. Being raised in Ringold, Georgia, the son of a Family Doctor, he was an Eagle Scout. He went on to the University of Georgia, then the Medical College of Georgia. His residency was at Baylor and Fellowship at the University of Utah. He was a Plastic Surgeon in Columbus for 40 years, successfully raising Christopher, Kevin, and Kendall.
Locally, he lived a life of service by giving back to the community. He had been the President of the Chattahoochee Council of Boy Scouts of America. He had been on the St. Francis Foundation. He was very active at First Baptist Church, especially in the Victory Mission, where he would mentor adolescent boys from South Columbus. That was a side of Butch that he never told us about… service without the need for recognition.
To me, Butch was a close friend. He had other close friends where he definitely added more life to our days. Life with Butch was an adventure. At best, it was unpredictable. At worst, it was “Houston, we have a problem.” On one adventure to Alaska, Butch and George Hubbard were dropped into the Alaskan bush for a hunting float trip down a river, with a pickup about 50 miles away. During that time, their guide became incapacitated with delirium tremens. The adventure then began as Butch and George had to work their way out to their extraction point, with a guide who was delirious. At one point George asked Butch,”Are we going to die?” After perseverance, they eventually made it. Death was not in their near future, but giardiasis was.
The “Butch Stories” continue. Ebay became a way to buy goods outside of the local market. So Butch, Mike Whaley, and myself bought a 1967 31 foot Chris Craft Sport Fisherman from the Chesapeake Bay. We had it trucked down here and put it in at Panama City. Shortly thereafter, we burned up one motor and the other transmission, leaving us fifty miles offshore and stranded. There was no need to panic. It was Friday night, and we weren’t due back until Sunday. So we fished. Then we convinced a charter boat to tow us back to Cape San Blas. That began the adventure of a total refurbishing of our vessel, which Butch named “Voy a Ver”. That translates to “We go to see”. For four more years we had adventures with that boat, fishing the Florida panhandle. At times the three of us were the Three Stooges. We would argue, get angry, and then make back up. Eventually the boat sunk at the dock during a tropical storm. Life with Butch was an adventure.
Butch organized several trips to locations and would invite twenty five of his closest friends to join him. This included British Columbia, Athabasca Saskatchewan, Belize, Bahamas, and Alaska. He was generous in many ways. Rusty Simmons recalled that frequently Butch was the organizer of these group events, and without him, there was no group. He had a sensibility about him that could meld a group of three generations into fun and excitement for everyone. Butch had a special relationship with George Hubbard and Butch was well aware that assigning George Hubbard the best guide was always protocol. Otherwise, George was known to get “loud.”
Rusty recalled a time in British Columbia, “Butch arranged an interesting side trip - to the trash dump. One of the locals transported us and then left. Butch proceeded in smearing the hood of a rusted out 1940’s pickup with peanut butter and honey. In short order, the very tall weeds around the dump began to sway and our visitor approached the truck with all of us tightly packed together. I will never forget, Butch with eyes as big as saucers and in a very uncharacteristically soft whisper saying , ‘My lord , that is the biggest black bear I have ever seen. ‘”
Once September arrived, it would be hard to locate Butch. During the autumn, on Saturday afternoons, Tommy Lawhorne would receive regular cell phone calls from Butch. His voice would be a quiet whisper, as he was calling from a deer stand and did not want to alarm a big buck. Butch would rarely harvest a buck, but preferred to simply observe the wonders of nature. The information he was seeking was the University of Georgia football score and highlights. Indeed, in a close game, Tommy would receive several of these “important” calls during the course of an afternoon. Butch was simply adding more life to his days.
Butch Wolff recalled, “That while waiting for the funeral service to start, flashbacks rushed through my mind. There were places we had been together: The Tetons, Grand Canyon, Jackson Hole and Yellowstone. We had explored rivers with names such as Satillo, Black Water, Oconee, Altamaha, and Ocmulgee. There were elk, mule deer and antelope hunts in various parts of our great western states. We spent hundreds of days and nights hiking, cooking, drinking, and sleeping around a campfire in the wilderness.”
Cochran had a love of adventure, a true zest for life, and was always up for an adventure. He was fearless to a fault, and was always sure that things would work out. And after some hardships, they usually did.
Cochran was not one for compulsive planning he would say "Don't sweat the small stuff." He might have neglected to pack adequate food and forget his need for a tent as we set up camp high in the Rockies, where sleet and snow were a regular occurrence. I can hear him saying "move over Wolff, I'm freezing” as he pushed his way into my one man tent, after dark.
His excitement would cause him to occasionally forget small essential details. Three of us, Cochran, Jimmy Sikes, and me (Wolff) went on a 12 day/night bicycle boat trip from Columbus to Apalachicola, paddling 200 miles and sleeping on sand bars. One day as were paddling, we stopped to explore a sunken boat and eat lunch. I looked up to see Cochran’s bicycle boat drifting around the next bend in the river. He had forgotten to tie his boat up. Here we were in the middle of North Florida with no cell phone, but he just smiled and said, "We will figure it out."
On Western trips, Cochran had his routine, of which there was absolutely no discussion. We would fly into Jackson Hole and spend the night. The evening would start with drinks, always a Manhattan. Then we would proceed onto dinner. After dinner we would go to the Cowboy Saloon to listen to Western Cowboy music and dance until it closed at 2 am. At the dance hall his modis operandi, much to my chagrin, was to find a woman and tell her, "My Friend Wolff is shy, but he wants to dance.” Our last trip to the Saloon ended with us leaving quickly out of the back door, as 8-10 huge biker dudes were explaining that they were going to remove certain body parts. This was because my buddy, Butch Cochran, wouldn’t leave their lady friends alone. That was typical Cochran.
Of all the beautiful places he traveled, Yellowstone was his favorite. He returned year after year looking for the path less traveled. Wolff and Cochran talked often and Cochran wanted to retire to Yellowstone and work part- time in a park store, then to travel back to Wyoming. This was so that he could wonder at the beauty of the Rockies, painted in yellow from the changing leaves of the aspens.
Maybe I’ll order a round or two of Manhattans at the Silver Dollar, and who knows, perhaps have a dance or two at the Cowboy Saloon. He was a good man and a great friend. I will truly miss him….
So he was one of those travelers whose journey got cut short
And we were the ones he left behind
Wishing we had more time
All I can say is
Butch couldn’t add more days to his life,
So he added more life to his days.
Voy a Ver,
Glenn Fussell, MD
