Ray Carey

Eulogy

By AJ Tarquino

November 17, 2009, M.C. Smith Funeral Home, Knox, IN

I am honored to be here today. I am honored to have been a part of Ray and Pat Carey′s life. Not too many people here know me... I am Andrew Tarquino. I am originally from Knox, IN. After the company here in Knox, Rockwell International, closed its doors, I had the opportunity to stay with the company, which had a plant in Newark, Ohio. I went to Ray and asked him what should I do? His reply to me was that if I had the opportunity to stick with a company the size of Rockwell International - to "GO... You need to go..."

Ray and I became acquainted when the running boom took off back in the early 1970′s. When Ray was 49 and I was 32, he and I completed in many road races. I did not like the fact that Ray could beat me. Out of 17 races that year, I beat Ray 9 times and he beat me 8. Never were we more than 15 seconds apart at the finish line. One race in Walkerton, IN, we were so close together that we locked arms and tied. He kept the $20 prize money and I took home the trophy. At that time, Ray was ranked 2nd in the State of Indiana for his age-group. The only man that could beat him was Hal Higdon from Michigan City. Ray was that fast of a runner.

Ray and I shared many rides together, going to races all over the State of Indiana. In later years, Ray and I went on fishing trips to Wisconsin. Years later, we went way up into Minnesota, near the Canadian Border. The crappie fishing was out of this world. We caught our limit of crappies (15 apiece), that averaged 1.5 pounds! The third time we went to Upper Red Lake, in Minnesota, the state had lowered the crappie limit to 10. We did not have much luck and believed the lake had pretty much been fished out. By word of mouth and ice fishing, this pretty much took care of the crappies. I watched on television, (ESPN) where a fishing program stated that Upper Red Lake was the ′best′ crappie fishing lake in the Midwest. Ray made the comment to me once, "We will never experience crappie fishing like that again in our life time." Well, he was right...

We never went back fishing once Pat became ill. Ray never cared to be away from her for more than a few hours, even when we met at races, he always left when the awards were passed out... Said he had to get home to Pat, because he didn′t care to leave her alone for too long.

Ray and I enjoyed many laughs together. We even shed some tears together. I remember the time when Ray and I learned that his oldest son, Raymee, had been killed by a train. I did my best to comfort him. We stopped by Ray′s childhood friend′s house, Carl Newey, on our way back home from our fishing trips when we fished in Wisconsin. It was a sad time attending Carl′s funeral with Ray.

All the years we raced together, we continued to support one another and encouraged each other to stick with our physical fitness pleasure.

Ray was a hyper person. He could not set still for very long. Maybe this was why he was such a great runner. When Ray was ready to go, you better be ready to do too, or you might find yourself left behind. Pat asked me one time, "How do you get along with Ray so well?"... My reply was, "Pat, I′m a runner, I don′t have any trouble keeping up with Ray!"

Ray was not a very patient person either. But... he did have patience when it came to hunting and fishing. He could set up in a deer stand for hours, watching and waiting for that special buck to come along. He could also set in one spot fishing with a bobber for hours, waiting for that crappie or blue gill to bite. How do I know? I was there!

One morning Ray was driving and we were heading to a road race. He had driven maybe ten miles already, when we got on the subject of bow deer hunting. Ray told me at that time that he had put an arrow in one last night and it had gotten so dark that he could see very little and lost his track. I stated, "Let′s go find your deer." Ray then stated, "You won′t mind not going to the race?"... I said, "Heck no, there′ll be more races to run, let′s go find your deer!" We turned around and headed back to the wood. Needless to say, I was the one that found Ray′s deer. We each grabbed onto one antler and drug the deer to a clearing. Ray jogged home and brought back his tractor and drug it the rest of the way to his barn. I helped him string it up and gut it, also. Ray could not have been prouder of his eight-point buck. I was too!

I was a pretty good runner in high school. My step-dad never supported my high school running. He never came to a track meet or cross-county race. My step-dad never watched me set my high school mile record or watch me finish first over-all in a cross-country race in which I led my team all of my senior year of high school.

Ray Carey was more to me than any runner could have asked for. His support, encouragement, and congratulations meant so much more to me. You were the best step-dad that I could ever have asked for. I′m gonna miss you Ray... I love you Ray.