Even back in 1987, when he was 53, Mankato tire dealer-turned-sage Rex Macbeth was drawing a bead on his own mortality.

“You wonder how people will remember you after you croak,” he said to a visitor one day. “I think of myself as a philosopher. I think I have the ability to sift through the garbage, to separate the wheat from the trash.”

Pithy aphorisms and homespun poetry were his fortes, and Rhymin’ Rex, the bard of the steel-belted radial, cranked out radio and TV ads that became mythic.

He also harbored a passion for the Old West, it’s history and firearms in particular. So it’s only fitting his funeral Monday will include guys in cowboy garb firing a 40-round salute.

Macbeth, who died Friday at 71 of a rare blood disorder that developed into leukemia, wanted to go out with guns blazing.

“It was his wish,” friend Arlen Skorr said. “He told me, ‘This will be my last performance.’”

Macbeth and his wife, Rosie, operated R&R Tire Shop until turning it over to their children several years ago.

That gave Macbeth more rein to pursue his Old West gun passion. He opened a vintage gun shop several years ago on North Mankato’s main drag and built sales through his Web site.

“Rex didn’t want to die right now,” Skorr says. “He said, ‘I’ve got everything running just right now on the Internet.’”

Skorr says a direly ill Macbeth called last week to talk guns. When Skorr registered his surprise, the droll Macbeth set him straight.

“I was scheduled to die this week,” Macbeth said. “But it’s been rescheduled until next week.”

Macbeth painstakingly planned his funeral.

“Right down to the dress I’d wear,” says his wife, who acknowledges that her husband’s emotions ran the gamut after he was diagnosed in January.

Fear? Rage? Resignation?

“All of the above,” she says.