They buried former Alabama Gov. George C. Wallace in Montgomery last week, atop a shaded hillside at Greenwood Cemetery beside his first wife (and his children's mother), Lurleen. It was a sad occasion and not just for those who supported his political ambitions in life. For, I am sad and I never voted for him for anything.

In fact, I only met Gov. Wallace on one occasion, a few years after he was gunned down in a Maryland shopping center parking lot. It was a memorable experience. For, even trapped in a wheelchair, he had the spark of a consummate politician a once, future, and always "good ol' boy" whose mind was always working at remembering names and faces and connections from campaigns long ago or dreaming of how to organize the one.

He was already a living legend, for good or ill, when I met him, but still he reached out to shake every hand, speak to every voter, and make whomever he was with feel they were the most important person he ever met. Consequently, when I heard the news of his death, I paused to think about what the life of this man meant to each of us and to the region we all call home.

Now, some cynics might say that Gov. Wallace outlived his time, that it would have been better if the bullets Arthur Bremmer pumped into his body in 1972 had finished the job. Obviously, it was a tragedy for such a vigorous, active man as he to be forced to live this last quarter of a century in constant pain, unable to walk or even to move around much without assistance.

Gov. Wallace was able to accomplish several things after his incapacitation including winning the governorship twice (in 1974 and 1982) and one of the things he did was to admit that he had been wrong.

Some folk say that Gov. Wallace was not sincere when he apologized for his past racism, that he was just interested in winning the votes of black citizens who had gained the ballot since the last time he ran. Of course, there were others who had questioned the sincerity of his commitment to segregation, noting that he had first run for governor as a racial moderate and, after he lost, swore that he would "never be out-niggered again!"

But, regardless of when he was sincere, Gov. Wallace made his name on the national scene as a champion of "segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever." And, as former Georgia Gov. Ernest Vandiver said after hearing of Gov. Wallace's death, "our state has become a leader and Alabama suffered" because of his defiance of the federal Courts over desegregation.

Whether Gov. Wallace was just returning to his own inbred sense of fairness when he apologized to black folk for all the suffering his actions caused or whether he really changed his views after he came to understand what constant pain and suffering was all about we will never know.

We do know that the wheelchair-bound Gov. Wallace asked for forgiveness from those he had wronged, such as Atlanta Congressman John Lewis, who was badly beaten by Alabama state troopers acting on the governor's direct orders and that his victims responded, doubtingly at first and then with acceptance.

And, we do know that after those victims overcame their own doubts and past hatred of the man and the symbol, they welcomed Gov. Wallace into their midst.

In many ways, Gov. Wallace epitomized the changes which swept over the South during the years he "strode the world like a Colossus," as Shakespeare said of Caesar.

Like so many of his fellows, Gov. Wallace was raised in one society, only to see it crumble around him despite his best efforts to hold back the deluge as a new one was being borne.

And, he lived through the times of tribulation to see and accept a new world in which so many do not even recall that once there was a place where black folks and white folks could not go to school together, or eat in the same restaurants, or drink from the same water fountain.

Gov. Wallace learned so well the lessons of those changes and he taught others by his example. Consequently, his passing is sad to many who never supported him at all.