Ted McCarthy

News Obituary Article

Ted McCarthy, lived life on the edge

By KAY POWELL

Ted McCarthy hated living with diabetes, which probably turned him into a lovable bad boy.

He lived life on the edge, said his wife, Debra Clarke McCarthy of Tucker. "He knew he was not going to live a long time and was determined to cram as much excitement into his life as he could. He did everything with a passion."

Mr. McCarthy was an insurance underwriter who was irreverently noncorporate, said his colleague Wayne Conover of Snellville.

He raced motorcycles and taught motorcycle safety to hundreds, "Some of whom he dissuaded immediately," his wife said. "He told them tennis was a better sport for them."

He practiced kendo, the art of Japanese fencing. "That just seemed very bizarre to all of us," Mr. Conover said. "They beat each other with sticks! I guess he did it to test himself. It pushed his limits."

As a teenager, he was thrown out of a folk Mass for playing Chuck Berry's "Johnny B. Goode" on his guitar just before Communion, and his wife said all she could think was, "I love that boy; he's so bad."

He studied jazz guitar and played weekends at metro restaurants, most recently at Terra-Cotta Pizza with singer Lonita Walton.

The memorial service for Edmond H. McCarthy Jr., 50, of Tucker is 2 p.m. Wednesday at Wages & Sons Funeral Home, Gwinnett Chapel. He died of a heart attack April 17 while at work at St. Paul Travelers E&S. The body was cremated.

She was 10 when she met Mr. McCarthy at a folk Mass and walking home from church told her sister, "I am going to marry Teddy McCarthy," his wife said. They did marry 13 years later, in 1979 after he moved to Atlanta.

At work, Mr. McCarthy was "a superior technician and an underwriter extraordinaire," Mr. Conover said. "He was really smart. He had a very, very razor sharp wit and was extremely honest. That is very off-putting to some people, but I loved it."

"Underneath that irreverence which was so core, so key, so essential to his personality," his wife said, "underneath he was so kind."

Motorcycles and music were lifetime constants. At 16, his first vehicle was a green Honda 350 motorcycle. He raced a two-stroke Honda YZ350, "in the mid-'80s when he was much skinnier and could fit into his racing suit," she said.

Over time he owned about 20 motorcycles---the most he had at any one time was seven---and favored Hondas and Ducatis, she said.

He wanted to increase his musical knowledge and studied under Bob Shaw of Smyrna. "He came to me to learn jazz guitar, and he did it with a vengeance," Mr. Shaw said. "He was excellent, and every time I heard him, he got better.

"His performances was classy; he was a very tasteful player, very warm. He didn't try to bury you with a lot of notes. His passion for things came across in a very quiet way."

Music brought his foster child, Nicole Vallencourt, into his life. She played guitar for a neighborhood garden tour Mrs. McCarthy organized. Mr. McCarthy nurtured her through her music and got her a job at Terra-Cotta playing on Thursday nights. In August 2005, Ms. Vallencourt became their foster daughter, Mrs. McCarthy said.

Over the years, Mr. McCarthy entertained at Patrina's Coffee Shop, Purple Cactus Cafe, Trattoria Varketta and for the last two years at Terra-Cotta Pizza.

"Music was his creative outlet," his wife said. "In fact, if he didn't have to have health insurance, he would quit his job and just play music."

Other survivors include a brother, William P. McCarthy of Marion, Mass.

© 2006 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution