Mr. Vince Merkle

There is a season for everything.

A handsome older fellow, genteel, as we are want to say in the South in looks and nature, and a dog, black as coal. Vince and Tobe.

I first met Mr. Vince at the old Tybee Dog Park on Butler Avenue, which is now Memorial Park.

The park that volunteers had erected was kept clean and orderly.

And that had benches that faced the road where you could sit and wave at folks as they cruised.

Southerners like to wave at passing cars with people in them they don’t know but one day hope to become acquainted.

We are friendly like that. And so was the fellow I sat beside that day all those years ago.

Mr. Vince’s dog squirreled away to a corner. Looked skyward and acted as if the joint he had just sucked on was taking him on a psychedelic trip where dogs and cats live together.

A Swede, a chef from Chicago, joined us. Christopher was dishing vittles aboard the Savannah Riverboat at the time, parented Roger.

Roger, a Rottweiler by breed, a big ole lovable fellow by behavior; Max, our Malamute; and Little Bit, the park Sheriff Bischon, chilled together at the bench philosophizing and mulling over what drugs Tobe enjoyed—and wondering if they could get some.

The three of us fellows talked about the weather, foods we liked, and eventually, having sensed each other’s politics as similar, the state of the world under the liberal regime.

We all wondered that day and for years if dogs and cats could ever live together.

Nearing the five-ish hour, I reached into my vest, withdrew a battered, historic yet still usable flask filled with Dewar’s Scotch, and offered my new friends a swig.

We three polished it off, discussing how socialism was a creeping horror and trying to understand how the president would fundamentally transform America into “change we can believe in.”

The next day, at the park, I asked Mr. Vince if he knew anybody willing to rent a place to us year-round.

Little did I know I would sit behind his and Miss Junie’s home in a garage apartment and write this story 15 years later.

The outcome of a meeting at a dog park.

We came to know and adopt Junie and Vince as part of our extended family, and we are forever grateful for this.

When our first Christmas came around, I saw Mr. Vince as I had been before I became serious. And I liked what I saw.

Before me was a fellow with an incredible childlike quality. He couldn’t wait to start playing the season’s music, decorating the tree, and enjoying the holidays’ sights, sounds, and smells.

His spirit helped me ground myself. I felt free to return to my unique feelings of the holidays, feelings I had buried after my Mother passed. I felt that experiencing them was being disloyal to Mom’s memory.

My Mother was like Mr. Vince. She loved Christmas. No, she adored Christmas. Christmas was not just a season to them.

It was an infectious spirit shared seasonally, a polishing and renewing of the souls, a return to the childhood feelings that we all want yet fear to explore as we mature for fear of being criticized or ridiculed.

I came to know this quiet, reserved man as a loyalist to his wife, friends, family, and his clients.

I gave an eulogy to my friend Mr. Vince.

When I do this, I talk to the family and friends, ask questions and listen. I’m always fascinated by what I learn about the person.

When Mr. Vince went into a hospital as part of his job, his  colleagues would say, “The mayor has come to town.” He put people to ease wherever he went and with whomever he dealt. People wanted to do business with him because of who he was.

Barry, his friend in Rome, said he always had a smile, a kind word, and always put others at ease.

Tybee is a quirky place—one of the many reasons I love living here.

It certainly fulfilled Mr. Vince’s needs.

Here, he and his friends Jimbo and Ron would tattoo the island with the memory of the “Overachievers” musical trio at Gayna’s Pub, sitting aside Highway 80 next door to Chu’s.

A triad of talent that became renowned on Tybee for their renditions and cassettes.

Starring Ron, the instrumentalist; Vince, the harmonizer; and Jimbo, the one person who could remember all the words of any song of their era.

History of this type doesn’t happen. It is a decreed, some would say.

My friend Vince also was a curious fellow and a good listener.

Miss Junie told me about that long, arduous, and seemingly forever day of antique shopping. On that day, she chattered nonstop and felt bad, so she stopped and asked him to talk about one of his interests.

Following a pregnant pause, he tilted his head and asked her with utmost sincerity, “Do you ever get butt sweats?”

I believe Mr. Vince and Miss Junie were made for each other. Like all relationships, sometimes it takes time.

They had practice marriages. After such practices, human nature makes us afraid of what could be.

Perhaps it was the night at Ember’s Restaurant, a swanky place in the South, where you have to hock your best over and under to afford to park your truck, that they realized this relationship might work.

For it was that night they confessed they both preferred Willie Nelson and BBQ to the fine dining.

Now, that is the foundation for a perfect union.

Forever, a fellow who enjoyed good scotch and humor, in the ICU in his final days with a nurse named Mike, we gathered his Panama hat, uncorked a mini-bottle of Chivas Regal, and rendered a toast to the good life.

Ensuring that Mr. Vince could partake in such partying, Mike would ask in advance, “Mr. Merkle, can you tell me who the President is?”

And with that ever-singular cryptic and beguiling smile, he replied, “I can’t bear to say this name.”

Mr. Vince died on July 24th, 12 years ago. Miss Junie misses him yet recalls all the good times, she says. I believe she does.

So, when Jimbo and I were having lunch yesterday, and he suggested, or would have had I let him,  that we should get her a bunch of big old flowers with a nice note in remembrance of Mr. Vince, I agreed.