They called Willie Webb "Grover," and also "The Mayor of Emory Village." 

He was described to me as a little black man, five feet tall, maybe 90 pounds. For all those 30 years, he had each day occupied a bench in front of a pizza place in Emory Village and there he had imparted his wisdom and humor. 

Willie Webb died the other day. The best estimate of his age was 82. He had no known relatives. 

Listen to Ed Green, for whom Willie once worked as a helper in Green's restaurant. 

"He could see humor when everyone else around couldn't. 

"The world was beautiful to him, and he was the most honest person I ever met. When he worked for me, he would sweep the parking lot. If he found any loose change, he would turn it in to me." 

How Willie Webb got to the Emory area is basically a mystery, too. All anybody knew was that for years he had worked as a gardener for a local family and that a room in the family's basement was his pay. Other odd jobs put a few coins in his pockets. 

According to legend, the lady of the house where he lived sent Willie out one day to dig a hole so she could plant a tree. 

Sometime after dark, she remembered she hadn't told Willie to stop digging. She went outside, and Willie was still at work. He had dug a hole so deep she had to get help to pull him out. 

When Willie died, some good friends tried to make certain he went out in style. 

The idea was that money would be raised to pay for a decent funeral for Willie. Otherwise, he would be buried as a pauper by the county. 

Friends went to a nearby funeral home, and picked out a casket. They bought a new suit for Willie and costume jewelry rings for his fingers. Willie had a thing for costume jewelry. 

But soon there arose a misunderstanding between the funeral home and the friends. As someone put it, "Things got nasty." 

The best I can make of it all, is after Willie was made ready for the funeral and placed in the casket, the funeral home director asked for his money up front and the friends said it would take time to arrange for full payment. 

What finally happened is the friends held a memorial service on campus for Willie and the funeral home still has the body and as soon as it stops raining and somebody can dig a grave, Willie will be buried in the DeKalb County pauper's cemetery and the county will pay the funeral home 250 bucks, standard for pauper's funerals. 

One thing Ed Green had said: "We didn't want to see Willie buried in a pine box." 

I talked to the funeral home director. He said he might just decide to bury Willie in the casket his friends picked out. 

"Might as well," said the director, "he's already been in it several days and I couldn't sell it to anybody else anyway." 

Touching thought, don't you think?