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Photo courtesy Debra Noons
Donald “Ducky” Noons. |
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Donald ''Ducky'' Noons
Kaimi Rose Lum
BANNER STAFF
A pall fell over the town of Truro this week as word spread of the death of Donald W. “Ducky” Noons, one of the community’s most beloved and respected members. Noons, 66, died on Friday, Jan. 21, surrounded by friends and family, at Cape Cod Hospital.
Even up to the very end, one close friend said, Noons was his good-natured, strong-willed, spirited old self, giving anguished visitors “that old Ducky Noons thumbs-up” from his hospital bed and still “cracking the whip and calling the shots” on matters pertaining to his longtime excavation business in North Truro. He had battled cancer for a long time, but even in the hospital in his final days he remained the “go to” guy — the guy with whom there were never any problems, only solutions, friends and family said.
“Even as he was dying he was consoling us all,” said Mike Winkler, who was at Noons’ bedside last Friday.
The son of John F. and Ruth Noons, Ducky Noons was born on July 16, 1938, in North Truro. He attended Provincetown High School and at the age of 14 began working in his father’s excavation business at Noons Road off Route 6 — an address more commonly known as “the sandpit.” After the sudden death of his father in April 1979, Noons took over the ownership of the business. He lived in North Truro for his entire life.
“It’s hard to sum up Ducky,” said Winkler on Monday. “He was pretty remarkable. He took it upon himself to look out for everybody that came across his path. Nobody ever had a bad Ducky story.” Winkler, who owns a crane business in North Truro, was one of many young workers who received a helping hand from Noons when they were just starting out. “I needed one crane and a spot to work out of, and without a second thought Ducky offered to clear out three or four acres [of his Noons Road property]. He says, ‘Will this do?’”
“If somebody needed something, he was always there for ‘em,” Winkler said.
“He was old school. Everybody had a special relationship with him, and he respected them. He was true to his word and just a real, all-around, good guy.”
Linda J. Noons-Rose, Noons’ daughter, described her father as a hardworking man who believed in the entrepreneur — “even though he’d never use that word,” she said. “He believed in the little guy. He was always willing to give them a foot up. He doesn’t play one against the other, and he treats everybody equally.” Noons-Rose said her father, a perpetual “people person,” became very close to a lot of the contractors with whom he worked.
He was a businessman, she went on, “but first and foremost he was a husband and a father.” Noons-Rose recalled that she and her sister, Debbie L. Noons, “were both pretty much my dad’s shadow” when they were growing up. When he left for work in the morning, they would beg him to take them with him, and it was always a big treat when their dad would let them ride in the machines with him. “We would squeeze ourselves into the front-end loader, into whatever space we could fit in,” she recalled.
Though years of hard work and a 26-year battle with cancer might have threatened to subdue it, family members said Noons’ lighter, fun-loving side was always healthy and shining through. Debbie Noons said that her father loved to travel and had taken numerous trips in recent years, including cruises to Alaska and Bermuda and excursions to Nova Scotia and Mexico. He went to Hawaii three times. “Much as he liked working, you could always pull him away from work to travel,” she said. “He liked laying on the beach and soaking up the sun.”
He also enjoyed clamming, recalled Noons-Rose, and had owned a boat once. She said her father used to tie a loader tire to the back of the boat, put her and her sister in it and drag them from Pamet Harbor all the way to Provincetown — one of their favorite memories.
Above all, “he really, really liked to demolish things,” Noons-Rose said. His excavating business was more like a hobby, she said.
Noons was noted in the community at large for his willingness to help people who were in a bind, but he worked under the radar and didn’t draw attention to his good deeds, friends said. Nevertheless, he was always the first in line when there was a need — be it for a hauler to help the Center for Coastal Studies tow a beached whale, materials to help someone build a roadway, equipment to right a truck that flipped over in an accident, or a place on his property where the local kids could ride their dirt bikes.
“It makes you laugh,” said Paul Morris, a Truro native who called Noons “my best friend in the whole world.” Morris said that, unlike a number of townsfolk who have lived in Truro for only a few years but who are named “senior of the year” in local newsletters, Noons was never recognized for his countless contributions to the community, even though he had lived here and raised a family here.
“Not that he’d like the recognition,” Morris said. “He didn’t want the recognition, but he certainly deserved the recognition.” Morris, the town’s Director of Public Works, said he had known Noons ever since he was a little boy, because his own father had worked for Noons’ father. “We’d go places, and I’d ride with him in the trucks. I learned a lot from him. He was like a father to me.”
He described Noons as “very kind, very helpful, very caring and very thoughtful. He wasn’t a phony. He was real genuine. He’s quite a guy, in my eyes.”
Morris, who made a habit of visiting with Noons every morning before work, said a void had opened up in his life now that his friend was gone. “That was a very pleasant part of my day,” he said.
Noons is survived by his wife, Paula, of 44 years, daughters Debra and Linda, and a son-in-law, Jeff Rose. The funeral will be held at 11 a.m. on Thursday, Jan. 27, at the Provincetown United Methodist Church on Shank Painter Road. The burial will follow at Old North Cemetery in North Truro, and a memorial gathering will be held at 1 p.m. at the Elks Lodge on 1 McCoy Road in Eastham.
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Peter Thomas, 86
Arthur M. Ventura, 78
Robert Weisser
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Jan 27th, 2005