Earl Munjar
Passed away June 15, 2009
No Services are planned at this time.
Earl the Pearl
By John Friesen, BEP vendor, retired
Earl Munjar came in to the BEP in 1958. He finished off his career with us, in 1990. He worked the majority of his time in BEP, at the Sacramento Department of Motor Vehicles. For the most part, Earl greeted his customers with a Blue Grass or Country song on his music box, and a grin on his friendly face. He was for a short while in business with Reece Griffith, as the Oak Distributing, and they together, with Earl's wife Marge, delivered wholesale goods to their fellow vendors and restaurants all over this area. Earl was the type of vendor who was a friend when needed, a business mentor and also trained dozens of fellow blind vendors during his career. His personal philosophy was to sell for a lesser price, but make it back on volume. All the time he was at DMV, he competed fiercely, with the K&G club, (a non-profit cafeteria, run by state workers). Earl came to work every morning at five and left at five that night. He always paid the maximum fee, and set a record for income from his stand, that will probably never be matched.
A couple of stories about Earl. His blindness started with tunnel vision. For a while in Hamilton City, at Mills Orchard, Earl was a worker in the fruit tree business. His boss asked him at the end of his shift, would he mind after planting over two hundred Almond trees, to run the bulldozer back to the headquarters building. He really didn't want to, but he loyally did. When he was washing up, the boss came in and gave him holy Hell! The boss told him he had just run down all the newly planted trees! After the tree incident, Earl finally had to admit to the boss, and himself, he shouldn't be operating any vehicles with a motor of any kind.
That wasn't the end though. Late in his career, after becoming totally blind, Earl asked his wife Marge to move their truck in to the garage so he could load it for the next morning's supplies. She had other things to do, and of course, Earl went out to the garage, and attempted to feel everything in to moving the pickup himself. He very slowly backed the truck, stopping occasionally to check the clearances. Almost done, he heard, rather than felt a slight crunch. He moved the pickup forward a foot or two, and got out to inspect. You guessed it, he had caved in their family's brand new, freezer.
Earl was a pearl, may be not for some as polished as they might have liked, but he was one hell of a good vendor, a great business person and a true friend, who a lot of us will miss. At 81, Earl fell off a ladder at his home in Chico. Unfortunately he never recovered, and passed away last Monday.
Earl, thanks for the time you were able to share with us.
|