The Newspaper of Record since 1878
Walter Linn “Mac” MacDonald passed away on March 24, 2022 in Tucson. He was 78 years old. He is survived by his wife, Sara MacDonald; children Keziah Maxfield, Ethan MacDonald and Shelby Gaither (Logan); granddaughter Kenda Maxfield-Potts; sister Ellen Vercellino (Gary); niece Kristen Kessler (Jon); nephews Greg Vercellino (Ashley) and LJ Cooper (Kathy); sister-in-law Jane Cooper (Leonard); and his favorite dog, Joey.
Mac was originally from Phoenix, Arizona and graduated from North High School. He served in the US Army for two years and was honorably discharged. He was a postal clerk in Globe, Arizona for 28 years. After retiring, he moved to Tucson where he volunteered with the Diaper Bank of Southern Arizona and participated in social groups with Sara. They built a cabin in Escudilla Bonita, New Mexico where he loved to vacation. His army service and leisure travel took him throughout the United States. He spent a week in Hawaii with St. Paul’s United Methodist youth group from Globe and a week volunteering at the Alternative Missions dental clinic in Helene, Honduras.
His service was held on Sunday, April 3 at East Lawn Palms Mortuary & Cemetery in Tucson, Arizona.
Mac also had a longstanding agreement with his daughter Shelby that his obituary would include a few embarrassing, fun or otherwise memorable stories.
He once regretted leaving a used bookstore and not buying a specific bird book. They had two copies, but he wanted the one with the pretty leaves pressed into it. After several days of anxiety, he made his way back to the bookstore, bought the book, came home and framed the leaves, beaming with pride right up until I informed him those were marijuana leaves.
He loved the first time I made margaritas (equal parts tequila, lime juice and triple sec), and although they were large margaritas and I was out of limes, he really wanted a second one. So he made one with grapefruit juice. He then tripped and ran into a parked car, after which he agreed that I was right, he really didn’t need a second margarita.
He was terrified of alarm systems, including when my parents had one installed in their house. He decided to set it to “armed/at home” before going to bed, but he accidentally set it to “armed/away.” He panicked and started yelling that the alarm was going to go off and the cops would be called, and ran outside. In his underwear. So my mom got up, grumbled “for pete’s sake!,” turned off the alarm and told my dad to come inside.
I decided to teach him beer pong once, but we were on more of a wine kick at the time. So we set up red Solo cups of wine on the dining room table. Wine has a higher alcohol content, which we remembered the hard way and then we vowed to never play wine pong again.
My dad was obsessed with collecting. He had 139 camping lanterns, somewhere around 150 bird figurines, more than $400 worth of bicentennial quarters and countless pens. Every time I travelled, I’d bring him back a souvenir pen. Every time we went to Wal-Mart or Target, he’d need to “check on” the pens, and usually buy some, telling me, “Don’t tell your mother.”
He went through several fashion phases. He decided he had to stop wearing plaid because Tim made fun of Al for wearing plaid on “Home Improvement.” He then amassed a large collection of Hawaiian shirts, certain they made him look like an “eccentric old rich guy.” He settled into denim shirts eventually, in some weird attempt to look “as cool as Jay Leno.” His holy grail was a denim shirt with pearl snap buttons.
He got into Celtic festivals and would walk around with a beer attempting a Scottish accent. He thought the Scots sounded just like the Jamaicans in “Cool Runnings.” After a DNA test he found out he was Greek as well, which got him very excited for the Tucson Greek Festival. He’d walk around with a beer reciting a line from “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” - “there are two kinds of people: Greeks, and everyone else who wishes they were Greek.”
He was a master of selfies before social media. Once he developed some film, and I flipped through selfie after selfie of my dad with a big grin and…a slice of onion in his mouth as onion teeth. There are also photos of him with a frozen lasagna box on his head as a hat. That was the day he proudly declared himself ”the lasagna king.”
He took great care of dogs, cats, bunnies, a salamander and his pet bee. My dad would go catch moths on the patio for the salamander. Our house was at the end of a dark long driveway on a mountain top, spooky as heck in the dark. I was mortified when I was dropped off after a volleyball game one night and my friend was disgusted to see my dad was catching moths under the porch light.
The bee was a character he made up. Anytime he saw a bumblebee, he said it was his old friend, “Bee Zone.” I grew up with Bee Zone and now I see Bee Zone sometimes. His granddaughter got to know Bee Zone, only she had her own bee too. So my dad had Bee Zone and she had Buzz.
He invented several characters with distinct voices and would randomly act as them. He’d host cooking shows. He hosted “car talk” shows where his “callers” would ask for help. He’d host “walking around the yard” shows where the yard was “The Institute.” He’d even host “painting” shows (a la Bob Ross) when he was painting furniture. He was always using white paint, but that was fine because he was painting snow scenes.
Donations can be made to the American Legion or The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research.
