Earl Smith the reported with former Morning Sentinel sports editor Harland Durrell.

The same week, Barbara Smith sat at a table by the lunch counter at True's Pharmacy in Oakland, near Belgrade where the Smiths live. She looked back over the decades, said you don't expect to ever reach the time where you talk about retiring, about careers coming to an end. It's been a good life, from the mobile home in Brewer where she and Earl first lived, to the retirement parties, the reception at the museum of art.

It was about to end, at least that phase of her husband's life, and she was a bit concerned. "I, personally, think it's going to be hard," she said. She has her friends; they talk and get together. "Maybe it's different for a man, to call people, say, 'Want to meet for lunch?'"

It may be that Smith won't have to do all of the calling. Adams said he would miss having him as a "very confidential counselor. I can share things with him and open up to him in ways that I can't with others," he said.

But Adams said he hoped he could continue to "air things out" with the colleague who knew "when the noise was just loud and when it was serious."

Cotter, from his Cambridge office, recalled the times he would walk into Smith's office in Eustis to find the place already full. "Students, coaches, people from town, people I didn't recognize that he was counseling about something," he said.

Those friendships, like Smith's ties to Colby, will live on, he predicted. "My guess is that people will continue to call Earl forever," Cotter said. "And he will always answer."