I never asked his name as his story was too personal.

And I did not take his picture - for the same reason.

But I will never forget him.

I met him at a hardware store.  He was helping me and we began talking…

When he was 7 or 8 years old his mother sent him out to find out 
why his father was late coming home from work. This man, then
just a child, said he went to the construction site where his father
worked and found him lying in a pool of blood in the snow next to
his truck.  Dead.  

This man told me that later the man who had killed his father came

to his mother, crying. He confessed, and asked for forgiveness. He said 
that he had not meant to do it, but that it had happened in a moment of
anger.

I asked the man what had happened next and was told that his

mother decided not to turn her husband’s killer into the police.

She told her son that nothing would bring back his father, and

that she did not want to see a human being spend the rest of his life

in prison.

He told me that his mother was never the same after the loss of her

husband and that she died a few years later. She left behind six fatherless

children. He said he was raised by his older sisters.

The man who told me this story was someone that I met in a store.

To be honest, I only spoke with him for 10 minutes.

I will probably never see him again.

His story haunts me — A child finding his father laying in the snow,

dead; A woman with six children deciding to spare the life of her

husband’s killer; A child losing both his mother and father but

growing into a man who holds no anger.  

I told the man that his story changed my life. It did.  

This is Seymour.

I met Seymour while walking in the parking lot of our local grocery.  I noticed his WWII hat and stopped to thank him for his service.  He had been shopping and was putting his groceries in the trunk of his car.  He told me that he was 97 years old and served in Germany during the war.  He said that he had been in the U.S. Horse Calvary and pulled an wrinkled old photo from his pocket to show me.

Seymour told me that the horse I saw pictured had tried to kill him three times.  When I asked if it was a 'bad' horse he said, "Oh no,  can you imagine what it is for a horse to have to put up with young boys who have never ridden before?"  

Seymour learned to shoot from the back of a horse and earned a silver medal for being a sharpshooter, and survived three battle campaigns including the Battle Of The Bulge.

He said that most everyone he knew is dead now.  

Then he thanked me for stopping to talk with him.

I was reminded of the song by John Prine, "Hello In There"

So if you're walking down the street sometime

And spot some hollow ancient eyes,

Please don't just pass 'em by and stare

As if you didn't care, say, "Hello in there, hello."

This is Charlie.

I met Charlie when I was climbing the rocks that overlook the ocean in Jamestown, Rhode Island.  He was sitting quietly with a notepad and a sextant.  Every few minutes he would take a reading from the sextant by aligning the position of the sun with the horizon, and carefully write it down in a neat column next to the time.  "My watch," he said, "shows me Greenwich Mean Time."  I asked him why he was doing this, and he said "Well, it shows me where I am."  When I asked if it wasn't easier to use a GPS, he laughed and said that it would be a lot easier and a lot more accurate.  He said "I've been doing this for 35 years.  It's my hobby".  He then showed me how the sextant worked and asked me to write down the next readings.

Now Charlie, of course, knew where he was.  He lived in Jamestown and has come to this spot overlooking the ocean many times, so I didn't really believe that Charlie needed a sextant to tell him where he was.  At first I was confused as to why someone would do this.  But then it came to me.

I think that sometimes when we find order in the universe, it stirs our hearts to new heights.  I think Charlie had found a way to see this order, and so he sat - overlooking a beautiful blue ocean - peering into the heavens, and at the horizon. 
Connecting the two.

And I think this may be a good point to quote from a new favorite poet of mine, John Davidson (1857 - 1909) -

God, smiling, took him by the hand,
And led him to the brink of heaven:
He saw where systems whirling stand,
Where galaxies like snow are driven.

This is Anna. 
I met Anna 39 years ago during a time in my life when I was alone and pretty much lost.  We were introduced by a mutual friend.  After talking a bit, we found that we had a lot in common.  We were both from small towns and grew up in the Catholic Church.  We were both Midwesterners, and we both had an interest in myth, religion and philosophy.  At the time we met, we were both in our twenties, both enjoying the mysteries of lives that were ahead of us.  She became a very close friend.

Last week I was told that she had only been given a few weeks to live.  I went to her home and sat by her bedside.  I held her hand and told her how much she meant to me, and thanked her for being a part of my life.  When I met Anna I was lost.  Barely visible. 

Being Anna’s friend made me see myself again.

Thank you Anna.  Forever.

Anna passed away one week later.  
The world is a much smaller place for me.
 

This is Dolores. 

She works the graveyard shift at the Roanoke Rapids, Virginia Pancake House.  I thought I was there to eat a quick breakfast and head back onto the road on my trip up to Rhode Island.  What I didn’t expect was that along with the pancakes and eggs, I would get a pretty big helping of down-home wisdom. 

Dolores was a philosopher dressed as a waitress.  “I was married 17 years and we just fell out of love,” she said.  “He wasn’t a bad person, in fact, he’s a really nice guy.  We still see each other.  It’s a shame, but sometimes it just happens.” 

Dolores told me that she has four children, so our conversation eventually centered on how difficult parenting can be.  “You know,” she said, “sometimes you just have to let them go.”  Then she added “but I’ll always be there for them if they need me.”  Dolores serves pancakes and wisdom.  And love.   Thanks Dolores. 

I left with both stomach and heart full.

This is Charlie and David.

I met Charlie at the local dog park. 

I had been watching the dogs running and playing - chasing after one another,

Charlie came over and sat down on the bench with me – thankful to have someplace out of the sun and 90 degree weather.  He seemed kind, but a bit distracted.  I asked his name.  He turned and looked at me, then looked away.

“His name is Charlie,” said David who also sat next to me. 

Charlie seemed to regain his breath and went off for another round of “I’ll bark at you, you chase me, and then I’ll rush back to my owner.”

David told me that he was a writer and was working on selling his movie script.  Yeah, sure, I thought.  I asked him what he had written and he rattled off the names of a few books (all of which I later found on the shelves of our library).  By the way, you might want to check them out - On Ice, The Gravity of Shadows, and Thief of Light.  All thrillers, all based upon the seedy part of life.

It was time to go, so I gave Charlie a scratch behind the ears, said goodbye to David, and walked away.  When I turned back, Charlie was smelling another dog.  He was a writer’s dog.  A dog that used his nose like his owner used words – to explore the underbelly of life.



[update:  I just finished reading The Gravity Of Shadows.  Wow!   David is a really good writer!  - You can be sure that I'm going to read his others.]

This is Robert.  I met Robert when I stopped to browse a Western boot and hat store in Sedona, Arizona.  Robert told me that he had originally been an accountant “not because I liked it, but because numbers were easy for me.”

Looking around the shop, I noticed a book on the counter with a small sign saying that the book was signed by the author.  Then I noticed Robert’s picture on the sign.  “You wrote this book?” I asked.  Robert’s face lit up as he began to tell me about the book.  He excitedly told me that he had received phone calls from people who were so taken with his story and it’s characters, that they asked him to write a sequel.

I asked Robert if he was a cowboy.  He smiled and answered, “Just a dime store desperado from Doodlebug Ranch.”  I liked Robert.  He was friendly, self-effacing, and kind.  He found his calling, not in numbers, but in words.

Robert is a renaissance man.  A renaissance man from Doodlebug Ranch.  BTW – check out his book at http://grasshopperflatssedona.com/index.htm