Remembering Earl Mabery

So….How do you spell Mabery? Apparently, any way you want to, since among my numerous friends and relatives with the last name Mabery, each of them seems to spell it differently. (Mayberry, Maberry, Mabery, Mabry…..)
Yesterday I learned that Earl Mabery, the big bother of my long time best friend, had succumbed to the ravages of a fast moving brain cancer. Scarcely two months ago, he had been alive and seemingly well and we were all planning a cruise to the Caribbean together next March. You see, not only was Earl a big brother to Richard, my best friend for some 40 years, he was my friend too. Richard, who passed away a few years back, had been the catalyst that brought Earl and his wife Gladys, into our lives, but it was Earl and Gladys themselves who drew us to them. They couldn’t do enough nice things for people.
After being buds at Lipscomb University, Richard and I were inducted into the U.S. Army on the same day, standing heels to toes in the line. Our service numbers were only one number apart and for the next two years we were never far apart either.
It was Earl who loaned Richard and me his brand new, green Ford Fairlane Convertible so the four of us, Jan, Sandy, Richard, and I could take a first trip to Florida before our induction date. I almost wrecked it on a north Georgia backroad.
It was Earl who drove us to the old Fort Street Train Station and then took the tearful wives home when we departed to Fort Knox for basic training. The brown eyed girl and Sandra, Richard’s wife, lived together much of the time we were gone, at least a portion of the time at the home of Richard and Earl’s parents who were two of the most unique and likable people one could ever know, but that is another whole story.
It was Earl who drove us at a highly illegal speed from Detroit Metro Airport to the Toledo Ohio airport when our flight had been canceled and we were in imminent danger of being AWOL within a few hours.
It was Earl and Gladys who prepared a going away party for us when we left and a welcome home party for us when we returned. It was at the welcome home party that Gladys gave me my most memorable haircut. I had gone by a barber shop near the GM Tech Center to get a trim after just arriving home from overseas and the barber either was drunk, or hated soldiers, (it was Vietnam and we were “baby killers”). I left the shop with a haircut that caused the brown eyed girl to gasp in horror when I picked her up from work. At the welcome home party that night, Gladys decided to remedy the haircut with a gadget she had purchased from K-Tel; she spread a towel around my neck and went to work. It was a little like eating chitterlings, the more she bit off and chewed the bigger the job got. When she was finally through, I can’t say I looked worse, since that was probably not possible, but I can say I am glad the GM was obligated to give me my job back.
After our discharge, we all lived in the little town of East Detroit, Michigan, which has now gone uptown and become East Point, Michigan, and Gladys and Earl were forever doing something nice for us. Gladys would call and ask Jan if she could keep the boys while Jan got her hair fixed of did some shopping, and Earl, who loved the water and outdoors, was always inviting us to the cottage they owned on Rondo Bay in Canada. There we boated, once even crossing Lake Erie and back, skated on the frozen canals in the winter, and dipped smelt and cooked them up right on the beach. Sandy Dean and Crystal, their older teenagers, provided handy and dependable baby sitters at a time when urban myth had babies being cooked in the microwave by a teenager high on LSD. Kim was a little young for babysitting duty but may have snuck in on the tail end of that experience. We were forever moving into and out of town with GM’s Relocation Services being our closest confidants, but when we came back to town Gladys and Earl were always there, always hospitable, and always fun.
In these later years since Richard’s passing, we have caught them annually at St. Augustine, where Sandra lives. They go down each year for a month or three and rent a place close to Sandra. We get down at the tail end of March when I no longer have to feed those big round rolls of hay to the cattle and we all catch up on kids, grandkids, and in their case, great grandkids. We tell old stories, walk on the beach, tell old stories, get coffee and doughnuts from Publix, tell old stories, and play trivia at the local bar and grille. We don’t win, but we like to play. Oh, and did I mention, we tell old stories.
It was always evident to me that Earl was Richard’s biggest hero, and to some degree probably mine also. He was able to argue without losing his temper, find a good thing in everyone, generous to a fault, had a big heart and a great sense of humor. He delighted in egging the girls on, a trait he gained from his father, and watching them rise to the bait.
He was interested in everything and as a resulting interesting at all times. Fun to be with and until the very end, never seemed to have a bad day, although I knew that he had suffered greatly with a neuralgia difficulty. An altogether pleasant fellow whom anyone would be happy to call their friend. Active to his last days, I can only be thankful he did not linger long in an invalid state; he would have wanted nothing to do with any such thing. I said earlier today when talking to my son on the phone, “Earl was a guy who always found the best in people.” He replied, “would that someone could say that about each of us when we are gone.”
Isn’t it just the most surprising thing when your offspring come up with such wise reflections? One day you turn around and life has passed and your children are making sage remarks.
Rest in Peace, Earl. Our Love, Buddy and Jan