Message from Alan Hoffman
To Lyn, Sonya and Anthony
I’m sorry Kirsty and I cannot be there to celebrate Earl’s life, but as you know my cancer is advancing quickly to and I’m just not physically able to travel.
I shed a big tear and had a good old cry after Carl had rang and told me Earl had died, we had only jokingly laughed at the thought 2 weeks earlier during a messenger video chat about who would die first and win the race. Well he won that too.
Earl in a way was the brother I hardly knew, after he left School and went fishing with Tony Pollock on the St Jude, and thereafter away to sea on the Bernhard he was never around, prior to that and occasionally we would go out cruising and drinking like all young fellas did in those days then I joined the Army and only saw him 2 times in 10 years. He was busy raising his family and working in Tauranga living aboard his boat, and I was doing the soldier thing.
Earl was so very very proud of his 2 children Sonya and Anthony. (though he would never tell them that) Both who were very accomplished in their fields Sonya as a superb Restaurant Chef, and Anthony who is a highly skilled Electronics Engineer. He was very lucky to have such a devoted and organized wife in Lyn who up to near the end looked after him and tolerated his moods and outbursts which unfortunately became worse which is understandable when your living in such pain, but Lyn you are the matriarch of your family, and we know you did your very best to make Earl’s latter days as good as possible. You never stopped caring.
After I left the army we would catch up with Earl and Lyn once or twice a year and have a beer or 2 and a feed of seafood, then go on our merry ways. And have the odd phone call every couple of months. I think Earl had cancer for quite a while but being his stubborn hard nosed fellow he was he never sought treatment, he just got on and lived with it.
In his younger days when he was fit, Earl was quite a dare devil. An evil kanivil if you wish, he loved motorcycles, and the thrill of speed gave him a buzz, throughout his life he owned several bikes. I used to give him grief about not wearing a full face helmet or riding without goggles, but he would laugh and tell me to harden up, until one day ripping home from Bluff on his CB450 Honda he got stung on the face by a big wasp and had a swollen bulge the size of an egg above his right eye! He learned that the hard way. I knew later in life he was into hang gliding and microlight aircraft. He could always recall some harrowing incident where something went wrong or he narrowly escaped death or crashed the glider on landing. Such was the way Earl did things all in or all out and done things at 100 miles an hour.
Earl was a worker and he had a good reputation as a ship Wright builder and engineer. A bit of a McIver he could repair or rebuild anything and took pride in his workmanship. He built several boats throughout his life and both he and Lyn were good team on the tools and were well thought of in the trade.
Earl did have a fiery personality, he wasn’t the biggest man size wise but he would give as good as he got in a skirmish, of which we had a few in our younger days, with many underestimating this, much to their peril. He was not the most tolerant person on the planet either and he wasn’t afraid to tell people what he thought, delivering some home truths to some which made him less endearing to people. But with Earl what you saw was what you got. He was an honest bloke, he called a spade a spade.
Rest in Peace Earl, sometimes death brings the peace you seek with the ending of the suffering.
Alan
Alan R Hoffman, Kaiapoi
