Tall and slender — he’s 6-foot-2 — he has a spring in his step, though he’ll be 90 on April 22. He didn’t plan on being that old — “I thought, well, if I can make it to 50. But I sailed on past 50 and looking back, you know, I’ve had a good life.”

It began in the family home on Main Street in Utica, not far from where he and his wife, Pinkey, live. For a time, the family lived in Vicksburg, then moved back to Utica, then to the Delta. As a kid he was a paper boy, and when he was a little older he worked for the dry cleaners. He went to high school in Utica, took saxophone lessons for a year trying to learn to play “America” but gave up and gave the instrument to his brother. He spent his college years in Texas, did his stint in the Army, had a successful chiropractic practice and dabbled in politics, serving as mayor of his hometown and a supervisor in Hinds County.

He met Pinkey, and they married in 1941 on Halloween — that was 68 years ago. They have three children and four grandchildren.

For 90 years, he’s enjoyed a life laced with humor, wit and wisdom.

He became interested in being a chiropractor because of his mother’s migraine headaches, so severe “we had to tiptoe through the room.” The family was living at Ruby, near Money, where his dad ran a plantation store and commissary. A German chiropractor in nearby Greenwood began treating McKey’s mother, and she got over the headaches.

He said he also hated needles and medicine, recalling that his mother always gave him castor oil or Epsom salt or something like that “to keep you busy.” He remembers old Dr. Green in Utica telling his mother how to raise the children: “I can hear him now. ‘Miss Virgie, all you have to do to keep them well are three things. You want to be sure they have a good appetite.’ We didn’t have any trouble with that. There wasn’t a whole lot of waste anyhow. ‘Be sure they have a bowel movement every day, and get plenty of rest. You do those things and you can’t kill ’em.’”

“Looks like he was right on me,” Dr. McKey surmised, adding that, “Growing up we didn’t go to the doctor unless it was something serious, like you had lost a finger.”

Though he has lived in several states, mention a name of someone from Utica and you’ll probably hear a story. Case in point: Dr. McKey’s brother Doub. Though he’s deceased, hardly a day goes by that someone doesn’t mention his name.

“He took the shortcut to success,” he said. “Doub married the boss’s daughter and operated Hubbard Chevrolet in Utica. He was definitely a town character.

“One time he sold a truck and the buyer asked, ‘What kind of warranty do I get?’” Dr. McKey related. And Doub told the man, “You don’t get a warranty. You get a guarantee,” explaining that “I guarantee you that if you miss a payment I’m coming to get that truck. You can count on it.”

“He would tell a customer, ‘Don’t think I’m going to sit here all day while you’re trying to make up your mind on what car you want. I ain’t got but two, and one is already promised. That narrows it down to do you want this car or not? If you don’t, let’s go over to City Hall and have a cup of coffee. I don’t furnish coffee,’ and the potential customer would decide, ‘I’d better get that car before somebody else comes along and wants it.’”

Dr. McKey’s earliest years as a chiropractor, after graduating from Texas Chiropractic College, were in Kilgore, Texas. Following World War II, he established a practice in Natchez, then moved to Vicksburg where he was associated with Dr. Ernest Howard and Dr. Hershel H. Emerick on South Washington Street.

Though his practice was good, he wanted to come home to Utica, so he built a house on Carpenter Street in 1955 and commuted to Vicksburg until 1971, when he had to retire because of a heart attack.

He had plenty to keep him busy, however, for at the funeral of Reuben Price, the mayor of Utica, Whit Simmons Jr. told a group of men that he was going to resign because he was going to work in Vicksburg for the Corps of Engineers, so “y’all will have to get you a new mayor.”

Everyone who was suggested had an excuse, a reason to say no, and someone said, “Well, Noel, you’re off two afternoons a week. It’s just a part-time job. You can easily handle that.

“Simmons told me he had already taken care of getting a new jail with orthopedic mattresses,” Dr. McKey said. “I told him they looked like concrete slabs to me, but he said, ‘Well, we call them orthopedic. It looks better.’”

He agreed to finish the term, but there was another political office in his future, that of county supervisor. Shelby Hubbard, who was supervisor, was sick and had little time left, and he asked McKey to promise him he would run for the job to replace him. Hubbard was concerned about some older county employees who had worked for years, made little money and had no retirement. Legislation was in the works to change that, but those old folks would need their jobs a little longer. The other candidate, who had run before, would fire them if he won.

By one vote, Dr. McKey was elected to a job that he says he knew nothing about. The election was contested, went to the Mississippi Supreme Court and the vote was upheld. After completing Hubbard’s term, McKey was elected for a four-year term, then served as the county’s public works director before going back to being mayor because “somebody up and died.”

As supervisor, he was instrumental in designating specific duties for board members, and as mayor he did the same for the town.

“The board of aldermen was elected at large, not by districts,” he said. “There was no need to have everybody doing the same thing, that being nothing.” He’s on the town’s zoning board “and something else that doesn’t amount to anything.”

His days consist now, he said, of getting up around 5:30 every morning, but he doesn’t go to Jerry Yates’ store at 7 “when the brains meet. Those are people who don’t have anything to do until 8 o’clock. Then the town dies back down.”

He used to be active in riding clubs, but his horse days are over. Now he rides a golf cart to the barn and pasture to feed his daughter’s two horses. Among his souvenirs, though, is a photo of him riding his grand champion, Shortcut.

Pinkey was born in Boston but lived many of her early years in Texas. Utica is the first small town she has ever lived in, “and I wouldn’t trade it for anywhere else. They’ve been so good and sweet to me. They’ll help you when you need it. Who could ask for anything more?”

Dr. McKey agrees, recalling in bygone times when Utica’s size was more limited than it is now, that his mother would get a call that “your child was over here on White Oak Street doing something they shouldn’t. I think maybe you’d better come over,” or “I just whipped Noel and saved you the job.”

Gordon Cotton is an author and historian who lives in Vicksburg.