MY BUDDY BENNIE

Abstract

Most of the things I know about Bennie Keel, he would not want to hear repeated. However, as Bennie generously remembered me at my retirement symposium, I will attempt to honor him with equal dignity, without releasing too many skeletons from the closet! I first met Bennie in 1964 at the Society for American Archaeology meetings he hosted with Joffre Coe in Chapel Hill. Our paths next crossed in 1972, when I began graduate school at the University of North Carolina. Bennie taught me everything I learned about archaeology during that first year. Although he left the following year, we have remained close friends and colleagues, sharing both triumphs and defeats with a candor that only redneck buddies can appreciate.