His sister died, so he inherited the house. 'Twas a good time to retire, so he left the sea, left the ships, and moved to Navasota. He walked everywhere. Found an old grocery cart behind a long-closed grocery store, cleaned it up, took it everywhere.
He made all the garage sales, walking all over town every morning. When I visited, he wanted to show me what he'd collected. A mechanic all his life, he'd bought outboard motors, dismantled and cleaned every part, and kept and cataloged the good ones. Salvage can be beautiful in the eye of the beholder, and valuable in the hand of a good mechanic.
Then people noticed he was bringing home BIG sections of what looked like scrap. Day after day. Suddenly, illness overtook him, and he was not seen again in the mornings, pushing his load of scrap.
A friend got volunteers to complete what none of us had known: his biggest project. Abandoned swing sets, cleaned, salvaged, cut and welded,combined into a huge set, almost finished. All primed and ready to finish. Volunteers painted, transported, and assembled his last great "salvage project": an enormous swing set for the Head Start school children.
Real values are transparent, credible, and powerfully motivation, even from a mildly eccentric friend. Makes you think of ancient words: "Go and do likewise."
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