Earl – The Guy Who Used to be My Father-In-Law…

10/07/2008

Not to long ago I wrote about how as one ages one experiences the passing of family and friends more often than one would like.  And so it is time again for me to walk this road.

Earl passed away last Friday after a long illness, he was eighty-six.  Though we have not been close for over fifteen years, I still very much considered Earl my friend and I loved him.  I have known him since 1958.

As much as this is an oxymoron, Earl was a simple, complex man.  Simple in that he was easy to love, and very complex in that it wasn’t always so simple.  He liked to play the tough guy, though deep down those who really knew him, knew him to be a pussycat.  He was tender and thoughtful and loving and affectionate, and he would give you the shirt off his back.  God knows Earl never met a stranger; he could strike up a conversation with anyone anywhere at any time.  He spent many years working as a machinist for the Western Electric Company in Baltimore until he retired about twenty-five years ago.  He toiled at a metal press, which if you have ever seen one you know what a dirty job it can be.  Earl dressed for work in casual clothing, changed into work clothes when he got to his jobsite, and showered and changed back before he went home.  This was the meticulous side of the complex man.

I so remember him on mornings with heavy dew going out to wipe it off his beloved cars.  His cars were always kept spotlessly clean, inside and out.  He was just as picky about his appearance.  He dressed to go out to dinner.  It was not uncommon to see Earl in a restaurant in coat and tie when everyone else was dressed in jeans or khaki.  He wore a coat and tie when he flew.  And he loved to get out his white shoes and white belt with his pastel-colored jackets in the summer months.  I think he invented the phrase “dressed to the nines.”

You just didn’t see Earl in dirty or ragged clothing, even when he went fishing.  To see him fish was to see a man in ecstasy.  It was poetry in motion; it was a dance; it was an opera and he was the tenor.  Everything had to be perfect when he fished, and I mean perfect.  Every knot had to be tied just so.  Bait on a hook, just so.  Casting was an art for him and I loved the sparkle in his eye as he so smoothly drew back his rod and placed the baited hook exactly where he wanted it to go.  Job did not have the patience of Earl, and you would have realized this on a fishing outing with him.  It did not matter to him if he didn’t catch a thing, it was the mere fact he was where he wanted to be, doing something he loved – the outside world did not exist when Earl was fishing.

He was a loving man.  His love of family could not be concealed.  I can hear him calling for his wife with a simple “Hey?” For a while we all thought it was her name.  He loved his Leila, and they grew much closer and more in love after their retirement.  And oh how the man loved his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.  He was about as tender a man as I have ever met.  Earl lost his only grandson about a little over a year ago and was nearly inconsolable.  He cared so much for that young man. 

Earl won’t be remembered by vast number of people.  He didn’t save the world and he won’t be remembered for anything he published or a speech he gave or some act of heroism.  To those who knew him, though, he will always be held in very high esteem.  He was simply our “Pop-pop.”

And that is all I have to say about that…