Off the Editor’s Spike: Blue coveralls with ink stains

Canceling Friday night’s football game due to the fatality of two Princeton teenagers commands attention (kudos for the decision to change the game’s outcome from “Forfeit” to “No Contest”). Then our mortality is underscored by deaths at both ends of life’s spectrum with the passing of 18-month-old Gage Harlow and 74-year-old Junior Evans. Both succumbed to cancer, cruel cancer, this week.

Obviously, we knew Junior better. I worked with Junior for 33 of his 46 years as a pressman. Junior first worked in letterpress for the late Marion Ridings, publisher of The Hamilton-Advocate. Eventually he joined the Gallatin Publishing Company “family” when Ridings threw in with Joe Snyder of Gallatin and Don Sheridan of Princeton to form Lakeland Publications. The joint printing needs of these three weekly operations put an offset newsprint printing press – and Junior – in Gallatin in the 1964.

Junior was there (working all night with Gerald Robison) when the old News King press was first installed. Junior was there nearly every work day thereafter: reliable, dependable, capable and willing to do his part day after day. Junior helped Gallatin Publishing Company grow. Working men like Junior Evans make America go.

I wish I could have known Junior in his younger days, when his athletic prowess particularly as a left-hander in baseball was a prominent part of his makeup. He followed sports, but he was interested in world affairs. He followed the news from a big screen TV in his later years as ardently as he read the locals published in the weekly chatters he helped print.

Junior wasn’t bashful. In no time you came to know that you, 1) Don’t knock Fords, and 2) Don’t make fun of Democrats. And, like all of us, Junior had his quirks.

Junior had a noon deadline to take his lunch hour which he preferred to observe regardless of whatever was going on in the pressroom. The funny thing, though, was how Junior claimed he wouldn’t actually eat, even if he was observed sitting in his Ford pickup munching on a sandwich. On some things, you just learned to give Junior some space.

Junior wasn’t afraid of work that gets you dirty. He would perform press maintenance and cleanup even alone without complaint. In fact, he looked most natural when a little black ink smudged into his whisker stubble.

When Gallatin Publishing was still located uptown, Junior manned the camera room. This was no small task before the digital age. Graduation editions were particularly stressful since each photograph had to be stripped into its appropriate space on the page negative. Often the wide variance in photo quality prohibited ganging up multiple pictures for one camera shot unless you didn’t care about print quality. Thumb back through those editions now archived and you’ll see how Junior cared very much! You can’t possibly appreciate the hours and hours it took, but Dennis Cox can.

When Dennis joined our staff he eventually took over camera room duties. Almost immediately Junior was a changed man. Regretfully, I had failed to recognize how must stress Junior was shouldering until Dennis lightened his load. I tried to apologize for my oversight once. Junior didn’t want to talk about it. He was always supportive and friendly to me despite our difference in age, even when I didn’t deserve it.

We depended on Junior in many other ways. The Snyders or the Wilkinsons may have owned the building but Junior was the landlord. Whenever anything in the way of utilities challenged – draining pipes for winter, replacing fuses or remembering important details about the maze of wiring cobbled between three storefronts spanning decades – Junior was there. Maybe he had no choice.

Once, right in the middle of a press run, Junior was pigtailing (grabbing papers as they stacked off the end of a press conveyor) when suddenly a stream of water poured from the ceiling onto the folder. Evidently, the renter in the upstairs apartment overfilled the clothes washer. Junior was quick to fix. But on at least one other occasion, Junior dodged the consequences.

This time Junior happened to be standing near the apartment drain pipes. It was midday, and the couple renting the premises were suppose to be away at work like usual. And yet, obviously, water was gushing down inside that drain pipe. Junior again was quick to respond but this time he chose to send Dennis and Liz upstairs. They entered, saw no water on the floor nor other evidence for concern, but still heard running water. Liz went one way and Dennis the other, which led him to open the bathroom door where a female was showering, oblivious the havoc her splashing created below! Dennis deftly kept things that way, softly closing the door and then successful in quiet retreat.

Now, you tell me, did Junior really know or not know what he sent Dennis to investigate!

If you didn’t know Junior by name, you might recognize the guy in dark blue coveralls with the ink stains especially if you frequent T&D Auto Supply, a favorite refuge for Junior. No doubt Terry over at the auto store can share more stories to help you get to know Junior.

Junior liked a little coffee with his sugar. For years I watched Junior brew a pot, lean back a bit to see through bifocals to pour a little coffee into a cup to which he added at least three heaping spoons of sugar. Let it be known, whenever we had anything sweet going to waste, we’d just put it on the table in the break room. Junior was unfailing in this particular way.

I want you to know I’m not comfortable using this space for eulogy. Every person has a story; the gift of life is precious. Obviously we can’t eulogize each person in this space, and we shouldn’t make exceptions based on just who we personally happen to know. And yet, even longtime subscribers to this newspaper may not have known Junior Evans and the important part he played in this operation for more than 46 years. And so, I write to correct that.

Junior’s last days were physically painful. The cancer was cruel. He didn’t complain, not to us. In fact, when we visited he’d express his sorrow for the families of little ones he’d see struggling through the treatments at the hospitals rather than say much about his own circumstances. This wasn’t just a noble gesture; he was sincere.

Three years ago I knew Junior really didn’t want us to move Gallatin Publishing to our better quarters here in the old cap factory. He liked the old press better than the larger one we moved up here from the University of Missouri-Columbia. But he didn’t thwart change. Not even when it was personal.

Before the move, we needed to inject some younger blood into our pressroom staff. Junior could have resented that, could have defied the inevitable by being obstinate, could have made things very difficult when Travis Burnett came over to work with us after working at the St. Joseph News-Press. Instead, Junior understood. He made the effort to assure they’d become friends. The evidence was in the jokes that peppered the pressroom, that grease that makes a long work day more bearable, a banter freely shared among equals.

Travis laughs when he recalls how Junior would lean his head back, striking that pose while looking down through his bifocals, to laugh while saying “Where’s my slave?”

Come to think of it, how fitting. Junior was a master of sorts. In many meaningful ways, Junior mastered life.