STAR CITY — If you knew Norm Julian, the intrepid columnist of The Dominion Post who died this past September, chances are you’re also aware of the colorful, complicated relationships he had with the vehicles he drove.
He wasn’t above cruising around with visible Bondi filler or primer paint showing.
Norm was also known to coat the undersides of his cars and trucks with used motor oil and even tar, so as to ward off the weather elements of Snake Hill, where he lived for years in a cabin he built himself.
He was once the proud owner of a since-departed 1974 Datsun pickup with 100,000 hard-earned miles on its odometer. He christened it “Blue Thunder.” His friends called it “One ugly truck.”
Blue Thunder was known for a distinct feature on its exterior: impressionistic, half-circles of wax.
That is, when a certain DP writer applied it, he wouldn’t buff it out — once prompting Tony Caridi, who does play-by-play for WVU sports, to jokingly accost him in the parking lot of the Greer Building one day.
The commentator demanded to know why the columnist was driving Blue Thunder around in such a state.
Julian was all mock-indignant when he recounted the exchange in the column that followed.
“Any dummy knows you get more protection from wax that’s on the car than you do from wax that’s rubbed off,” he wrote. “Blue Thunder, maybe like me, is not so high on beauty as he is lofty on function.”
Norm’s last vehicle, a 1997 Toyota Tacoma truck with a mere 62,000 miles and no Simonize-swirls, is now getting a new road lease, by way of a new-old friend.
Todd Gregg, a former Star City councilman whose parents lived next door to Julian for the 20 years he resided in the town, acquired the vehicle recently.
How to grow a friendship
When Gregg did the mowing for his parents Joan and Dick, he also made sure to take care of Julian’s yard, too.
Julian was a storyteller and Gregg was an enthusiastic listener.
“Anytime we talked, it was a history lesson. He knew something about everything.”
The two became friends. The writer was already friends with Gregg’s mom and dad.
Joan Gregg always made sure a plate of food was there for Norm, if he wanted it. Especially during Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter. Julian responded in kind with bags of vegetables from his bountiful backyard garden.
Dick Gregg, meanwhile, knew how to grow two things in his garden: Weeds, his son said, chuckling, and “elephant” garlic, so named for the mild-flavored, large bulbs yielded during the harvesting – which Julian loved.
Dick Gregg starred as a lineman for Morgantown High School in the 1950s, and Julian, who had logged lots of hours on the sports desk in his career in journalism, wrote the nomination that got him into the MHS Athletics Hall of Fame.
“Norm and my dad were always having a conversation,” he said. “They were both Italian. Lots of things in common. I can still see them, pulling up chairs and talking. Norm was family.”
Dick Gregg died in 2019, but Joan kept the plates of food going to her neighbor and Todd kept mowing, even if Julian had some comically cranky stipulations.
“He’d tell me, ‘Mow here, but not yet – wait two weeks,’” Todd Gregg said, laughing.
“It was funny, but oh, man, he was strict and exacting. One time I mowed over his Easter lilies that were wilted and done. He said, ‘You mowed too soon.’ I said, ‘Norm, they were dead and hanging over.’ He said, ‘Now they’re not gonna grow in right next year.’ ”
Gregg was amazed at Julian’s homestead-resourcefulness.
“The guy never threw anything away. He’d turn an empty water bottle into a bird feeder. He’d take old roofing shingles and turn them into tread for his porch steps.”
He also knew how to cultivate a friendship.
Road trip?
Julian was 85 when he died, and in the months up to that, the leukemia he had knocked back for 20 years began gaining.
He started talking about transitions, while mentioning he might have to park the Tacoma someday soon.
“I said to him, ‘Norm, if you ever got to where you might want to sell it, I’d be interested.’”
When his illness forced him into a nursing facility back in his native Clarksburg a few weeks before his passing, and when he started thinking about settling up with his earthly affairs, he told his niece and caregiver, Tressa Shaw, to “make sure Todd gets the truck.”
The inspection is next week.
“I’m not planning on doing a whole lot to it really,” he said. “Some detailing and new tires. And lots of vacuuming, because this is Norm.”
Which is why he smiles now when he regards it in his driveway. It’s not the truck or what he paid for it, he said. It’s the sentimentality of the whole thing.
It’s the representation of the printed life and personal life of the buddy who drove it first.
“I like to think Norm’ll be riding shotgun with me. We’re probably gonna have some interesting conversations.”
