The Laid-Back Landscaper

Carlton Enfinger (1929-2016)

In my weekly search of obituaries, I was saddened to come across this one of a very familiar character from my early college years.  Although not a professor (not even close actually!) he had his own impact on many students at the old campus in Graceville, FL, back in the day, and I wanted to just spend a little time telling my story of knowing him.

In the early 1990's at what was then known as Florida Baptist Theological College in Graceville, I was a young kid in my early 20's, fresh out of high school.  In my first couple of years at FBTC, I managed to get a part-time job working on the campus with the maintenance department - my job was not glamorous at the time, as it simply involved walking around with a bag and a stick cleaning up garbage on the campus a couple of hours a day.  As I lived in the dorms then, I had no living expenses so to speak, so this modest income kept me taken care of during those years.  If you would wander the campus in those days, often you would stumble across an elderly guy who would be sort of hanging out in a grove of trees or a thicket of shrubbery somewhere out of the way.  He was actually the campus landscaper, and he had the duty of keeping up the lawns, the shrubbery, and the flowerbeds.  Although he actually looked "lazy," he really wasn't - he worked as hard as anyone, but he did so at his own pace, and at his age no one really argued with him about it either!  That old fellow was Carlton Enfinger, and he was sort of a campus fixture at that place for over 25 years of his life.  Let me give you a little biographical information about him I gleaned from his obituary, and then I want to talk more about how I actually got to know and respect him.

Although he lived in Graceville most of his life, Carlton was born actually about a dozen miles or so away in the neighboring town of Bonifay to the west.   He was, for all intents, a native "Florida Cracker," and he loved his home.   Although the obituary at the local James and Lipford Funeral Home in Graceville lists him as a retired custodian, his actual job was landscaping around the campus.  He was happily married to his dear wife Marilyn for I don't know how many years, but he must have been married at least 60 or more to her.  Although he had retired some years ago from the college as their landscaper, Carlton still seemed to have a pretty decent life up until his repose this past Sunday.  

Not long after I came to school at FBTC in 1989,  I was able to get work as part of the campus maintenance crew on the "Work-Study" program, and often as I made my rounds, I would run into Carlton doing his thing and we'd chat a bit.  After some time, I got to know him pretty well, and having the daily chat with him of a day turned out to be something I looked forward to, as he was a fount of historical information about Graceville and the surrounding areas - if you needed to know anything about anyone locally, Carlton was the guy to ask!  He and his wife Marilyn also grew turkey figs on their property, and she would can those.  One day Carlton brought me a container of those figs, and I recall making an Assyrian-type pastry out of them with biscuit dough, and they were actually delicious!  

The last time I saw Carlton was back in 1992, after I had left FBTC for good and was preparing to transfer to Southeastern University in Lakeland, where I would eventually get my Bachelor's degree in 1996.  At the time, Barbara and I were newly-married, and we were visiting an old-fashioned Holiness/Pentecostal church in Graceville called Graceville Community Church, which had recently renovated its campgrounds and sanctuary after sustaining extensive damage from a fire a couple of years earlier.  Although at least professing to be Baptist, I was actually pleasantly surprised to see old Carlton and his wife there, and it was good to see him.  I don't recall if he had retired then or what the story was, but apparently after some time he had started going to Graceville Community.   In recent years it looks like he attended Harmony Baptist in Graceville (also called "The Mission," where my old boss on the maintenance crew, Raymond O'Quinn, pastored), as it is listed in the obit as where his membership was at the time of his repose. 

In summation of all this, Carlton was just a good guy - he had a sense of humor, was very easy-going, and you couldn't help but love the guy once you got to know him.  He will be missed by so many of us who often took him for granted as a permanent fixture around the campus, and as his family and loved ones say farewell to him today at his funeral in Graceville, I do likewise in spirit too - rest eternal, Carlton.