Remembering Gary Nagle

I was never much for vacations, but in March 1990 when I decided to leave the Lamar Democrat after seven and a half years and work for the Carthage Press, I took a complete month off.

During part of that time, I stayed with my parents in Newtonia and took with me three months worth of back issues of the Press, as well as back issues and my old files from the Democrat.

For about a week of that time, I clipped stories and reorganized my filing system so I would be ready to hit the ground running when I started work at Carthage.

The lesson I learned, in addition to being as thorough as possible in my research, was that Avon boxes were perfect for file storage and my mom, who was selling Avon at that time, had plenty of them, delivered on a regular basis, year after year, always on time, by the dependable driver for United Parcel Service Gary Nagel.

While those Avon boxes are long since gone (though I still have most of the files), I thought of them today when I learned of the death of Gary Nagle, a Stark City resident, at age 72.

I did not know Mr. Nagle well, though I was in Newtonia a few times when he delivered Avon for mom or some part my dad used to fix someone's appliance. He was a good friend of my mom and dad, however.

Three years before the tornado that destroyed much of Joplin and Duquesne, my home town Newtonia, was struck by a tornado that destroyed about half of the houses. It took place just past 5:30 p.m. on a Saturday night My mom and dad were home and were in their house when it was hit by the tornado, tearing away a part of it. They crouched down behind a couch with Mom holding her dog Zoey and waited as a few seconds that seemed like hours passed and things finally calmed down.

You did not hear much about the Newtonia Tornado of May 2008 because, thankfully, no one died. But just like in the days after the Joplin Tornado, people came to help, and just like in Joplin, some came over and over, day after day, to do what they could.

Right at the top of the list of those people, as far as Bill and JoAnn Turner were concerned, was Gary Nagle, He came day after day, bringing machinery to help clear the seeming millions of limbs and bits of debris that had collected in the yard.

Thanks in large part to his help, it was not long before the Turner property looked more like it had looked for the five and a half decades my parents had lived there..

I am sure others have similar memories of Gary Nagle, a man who did not have to be asked, but simply showed up when there was work to be done.

While his reliability as a UPS driver for more than 30 years was valuable and appreciated, it was his dependability as a friend that made Gary Nagle indispensable.