Jul 29, 2022 4 min read

Typically, at this time of year, I’d be writing a column about the Steelers in this space.

But this isn’t a typical week.

George Block has died.

When I was hired at the Observer-Reporter in 1993 to write sports and help beef up the paper’s coverage of hunting and fishing, one of the first things I did was to reach out to George regarding the weekly column he wrote for years in this publication.

I wanted to assure him that nothing was going to change with his column. In fact, he might even have a little more freedom. I wasn’t going to mess with his column much at all, other than just the regular edits.

Why mess with what’s working?

For 24-plus years, George would drop off his typed column – the typing done by his wife, Eileen, and later by his daughter, Kathy – at the front desk of the Observer-Reporter. If I was in the building, he would often go to the newsroom and we would chat about what was going on, either locally or in the state, with hunting and fishing. Other times, we’d talk baseball.

And George could talk. And he knew everyone.

If I needed to talk to someone and didn’t have a phone number for them, I’d call George. There was a good chance he had the number I needed.

We didn’t always agree on all the issues facing today’s hunters and anglers. Who does? But we could always talk those issues rationally. I always appreciated that.

I always appreciated George, and Eileen as well. I know it was a task for her to type those thousands of columns George wrote over the years.

And that’s why when Eileen passed away, and George asked if it would be OK to write a column about his life with her – she was his constant companion on many of his hunting and fishing trips – there was no way I could say no. In fact, I told him to write as much as he wanted.

I wouldn’t write anything that week. The entire Observer-Reporter Outdoors page would be dedicated to Eileen that week.

And George poured his heart into that piece.

We picked out a photo and ran it with George’s column, which took up the entire page.

I didn’t tell George when we were talking about it, but I had something planned for him. In those days, the paper was still printed in Washington on the press downstairs at the O-R. And as part of the printing process, the page was sent from my computer to the photo room, which put it onto film. Then, from the film, a photo was taken that burned the page onto an aluminum plate and then put on the printer.

I went downstairs and got that aluminum plate and presented it to George. I might very well have given him a million dollars.

George and Eileen shared a special relationship built not only over years of marriage, but years of hunting and fishing together. She was his constant companion at the many shows he attended.

George continued on doing so many of those things after her passing, but even though he had a group of friends with which he did those things, I don’t think it was ever the same for him. And that’s no offense to those guys who listened to his countless stories, helped him measure bucks or sat along the shores of Cross Creek or wherever he was fishing that day. He and Eileen just had a bond you couldn’t help but admire.

George stayed busy following her passing. He was a constant visitor at every gun shop in the area, and many outside the area. And he continued writing, right up until his death.

After leaving the Observer-Reporter as a full-time employee, I meant to give George a call, but I knew his health wasn’t great. I wasn’t sure I should bother him.

But when I got the news this week that he had died, I realized it was too late. I should have made that call at some point in the past couple of years.

I still would read his column on the website on a regular basis. If you read George’s columns, you knew George. His was the longest-running column in this publication.

And it will definitely be missed, as will George.

At least now, he’s at peace, sitting in a field with his binoculars looking for groundhogs with Eileen watching by his side.