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3.20.2003
Richard Cabral Jr., 37; fun-loving 'mill boy' and family man
They miss Richard A. Cabral Jr. at work.
They miss his tattoos, the ones featuring characters from author J.R.R.
Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. They miss the jokester who sometimes wore
a crown at work, fashioned from the twist-ties used to close bread bags.
For the last six years, Richard, 37, of Attleboro, has been one of the
"mill boys," the guys who worked together in the raw materials
department of Leach & Garner in North Attleboro, making parts used
to design 14-karat gold settings for jewelry.
Coworker Terri Fraatz called them the "mill boys" because they
shared silly rituals such as "the banging of the pipes." That's
when they would pretend that the building's pipes were musical instruments
and bang out a beat.
"I only knew Richard for 2 1/2 years. He was a quiet guy when we
first met; however, over the years, we ended up debating everything under
the sun," said coworker David Provencher in one of the many tributes
employees have written. "It shows a lot about Dick that a fun family
outing was going to Great Woods for an all-day Oz festival."
That's Oz as in Ozzy Osbourne, the heavy-metal singer and, more recently,
MTV reality-show dad. Unlike some dads, Richard gladly listened to the
music.
"He liked it all," his wife, Catherine, said of hard-rock music.
Catherine says Tolkien's world of hobbits and wizards battling great
evil had captured her husband's interest for years. He enjoyed the recent
movie adaptations and had tattoos on his back of all the major characters
from the trilogy.
Mostly, though, his wife remembers a family man who doted on their children,
Richard A. Cabral III and Christine R. Cabral.
"Very caring," she says, noting that the family never lacked
for anything.
Richard and Catherine would have celebrated their 17th wedding anniversary
in June.
-- Michael P. McKinney
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