These words have great meaning to me. If asked and after great thought 100 people would describe 100 different versions.
Today my poster person for content of character swung by to visit and buy some tomato plants from me. He considers me the worlds greatest good luck charm. I have news for him.............
So what makes this guy who name is Mike someone I admire? He isn't rich, he actually is living in a travel trailer. He isn't terribly beautiful, he is a fifty year old red neck slightly short, with a bit of a gut. He does still manage to maintain a full head of blonde curls though. I tend to have great respect for people who survive various horrors that make my bones turn to jelly at the very thought of something like that happening to me.
His story below the squiggle.
Mikes saga began in 2008 in Southern Oregon where he had lived most of his adult life. A house builder by trade, he had through his skill created a pretty good business as a sub contractor.
He had a large house that he had built himself and owned outright. He had a wife, two kids in college and a dog. Life was good, his pay checks were big and retirement was visible from where he sat. Then the contractor he had been doing a lot of work for declared bankruptcy and suddenly all that was solid turned to sand, except the dog.
2009 found him living in a travel trailer behind his parents house in his home town up the road. He began to look for work, and he looked and he looked. Then he landed a job as a roofer, $12.00 an hour, he was totally thrilled.
Then on day six of his new job an extension ladder came crashing down breaking both of his ankles. He spent most of that summer in casts. In late August he landed a job working on a house an old friend of his was building. I wrote about him once, a train engineer who put his money where his mouth was and built a house while most people were losing theirs. He did need a house, but he planned to do it after he retired and that is, even now, a few years away. He did it as a way of giving people he cared about money they could accept and still keep their dignity intact. Smart guy makes him a hero in my book.
The train engineer also likes to contribute to my little house project, which is right near the rails he runs most days. He credits me with saving his life when he was ready to give up. Being a tiny woman rebuilding her house with zero help and slow progress made him feel like a giant sissy for even thinking about quitting. This lead him to rethink his position. He did the work, oddly he gives me the credit. This is how Mike arrived on my doorstep. Part of the deal he struck was there to side my house as well no charge to me with what ever siding I chose no charge on that either. The engineer had it covered. Mike spent a lot of time trying to ferret out why this was happening but I am slippery when necessary he never found out at least not from me. Either way he has stopped trying to get me to tell him.
So it went, I got superbly finished walls, the workmanship and creativity used are so outstanding it still takes my breath away. As the job was winding down I could tell Mike was fretting over what was next. He had been spending his every waking hour, when not working for me, filling out applications and looking for a job.
The last day he seemed resigned to his fate another winter or maybe a life time of absolute poverty. I had no idea what to say, but it certainly made me thankful for what very little I had at the time. I wished I could do something but short of feeding him on occasion I could do little.
A week later I got a call. You would have thought the Bruce Springsteen had landed on his doorstep in a flying saucer he was so excited. He thought his head cheerleader and sounding board, that would be me, should know he had a job. Not just any job but a really good one. He was going back to his roots, his first job ever had been operating a boat on the river moving logs from floating storage to a mill. His new job would have him working on the river.
Two years later he is still there now he is running the boat. He still lives in his travel trailer but on his own property. The property has an old house that currently is not very liveable, as he can afford he is having his friends do work on it.It is not a very large house about 1/3 of the size of the one he had before his life crashed but he selects every single board that goes into it for quality.
We get together every once and awhile for coffee, he is one happy guy, he practically radiates contentment and peace. I hope someday to achieve that state of mind until then there is Mike to remind me just what it is I aspire to.
This is what character is to me, this is what I admire. The ability to overcome, and keep going until happens. The ability to keep trying even when it seems hopeless or the road from here to there appears to have a vast canyon down the center.
Could I have survived what Mike went through maybe and maybe not, I really don't want to find out. His story though has certainly made me feel like a giant sissy when I was feeling sorry for myself on more than one occasion.
I wish every person on a similar journey an outcome that is at least as good as Mikes.
But not only that. When they arrive I hope they will do as Mike has done. Turn around and give someone else a hand. We are after all, for better or worse, in this mess together.