An Appreciation
By Francis X. Archibald
Carl E. Meynardie, Sr.
June 13, 1918 - September 2, 2011
The measure of a man can be found in the generosity of spirit with which he treats a stranger. (Anon.)
About 25 years ago, I bought one of those black cardboard boxes used to store five and a quarter inch computer disks and wrapped it as a birthday gift for my friend Carl Meynardie. Although we did not normally swap birthday gifts, I gave the gift as a way to say thanks for introducing me to personal computers.
Carl sold me my first computer, a Radio Shack TRS 80 Model III, a one-piece machine with a nine-inch green screen and 48KB of memory. When we added an additional 16KB chip and increased the memory to 64KB, we thought we had all we would ever need. Boy, were we very ignorant of what was to come.
No one was home when I went by Carl’s house so I left the gift in the carport near the door he and Grace usually used to enter and leave the house. Five days later, he called me and said he had just found the gift that day.
Our friendship today goes back over 50 years. When I moved to Hanahan in 1960, I thought to be engaged in the community. I attended a couple of meetings of the Hanahan Civic Club and spoke on a couple of issues. One night they were nominating officers and Carl got up, pointed to me, and said if he knew my name he would nominate me for President. Someone told him my name; I was nominated and served my term. This was my introduction to Carl Meynardie. Little did I realize at the time what a wonderful friendship had come my way and how much more I would enjoy it in the future.
As time went on, I learned how Carl and some other men had started a free weekly newspaper, The Hanahan News, to inform the community of local events. The venture was slow growing, time consuming and costly to produce. Carl was the active member who took on the responsibility of putting out the paper each week. The original sponsors lost interest in continuing to invest money and soon he gave up his construction business, bought them out, and turned to publishing the weekly full time.
Carl invited me to write a column of fact and opinion and I did so for almost seven years. I also helped in other ways, including putting out the paper one week when he and Grace went on vacation. The lead story that week was, “Meynardie’s flee the area,” complete with a picture of Carl and Grace. The story reported Carl had taken an earlier trip to the Pacific (and wound up fighting the Japanese). Carl’s mother, who received the paper in the mail, was still laughing at the picture and story when Carl dropped in on her home on the return leg of the vacation.
Carl introduced me to the Exchange Club and the great good they did for the community. In a tribute to his influence, I held several offices in the Hanahan Club, including being president when the Club won its first Big “E” award. Many of the men who served the Hanahan community through Exchange did so because of Carl’s persistent membership recruiting efforts. He was an indefatigable community supporter.
In the early seventies, Carl used the newspaper to endorse my campaign for Hanahan City Council and later applauded the city when they appointed me a city judge. In the eighties Carl was again in my corner when I ran for the State Legislature. He gave me a column in the paper again to keep my views before the public and to report on my stewardship of the office.
In more than five decades, my wife and I came to know Carl and Grace and their children. They are first class people whom we are proud to call “friends.” Through the years, the social and political turmoil of the ever-changing times, and the cycles of the business world, Carl kept The Hanahan News going. He struggled heroically to give the community a weekly newspaper where the ordinary citizen could learn what was happening in the community, where accomplishments – both of adults and of children –were recognized and saluted, where merchants successfully advertised their wares, and where an insightful, well thought editorial from time to time helped keep community leaders and events in perspective.
Time has marched on for all of us. Carl was 93 when he died this week. He continued to live with Grace in their Hanahan home for more than 50 years. In my lifetime, I have not had a friend as steadfast and loyal as Carl. I got much more out of this relationship than I had a right to expect.
If a man is measured by his generosity of spirit toward others, then Carl E. Meynardie was truly a great man who has shared his life with his fellow man and his community. God Bless him now and forever.
(The foregoing was delivered at Carl's funeral September 6, 2011.)
